


A boring, little man.

by Wibble



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:27:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 33,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wibble/pseuds/Wibble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt given on sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com by causeimashamed.</p><p>During his kidnapping in The Great Game, John captures Moriarty's attention and Jim decides to keep him close by. John is forced to help Moriarty in his work and kept prisoner.<br/>When Moriarty realises he needs Sherlock's help solving a puzzle, he knows exactly how to make him co-operate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Great Game

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One is pretty much a recap of TGG, with a few changes to adapt to the story. And then some new bits at the end.

His neck aches. He blinks a few times, opens his eyes and sees his knees. His chin is on his chest and that aches too. 

Slowly, he lifts his head and blinks his surroundings into focus. He appears to be in some sort of changing room, hands tied loosely behind him in a rough rope, shoes sprinkled with the water that is covering the floor. 

A door opens and he struts in, putting his phone back into his pocket.

“Ah, Dr Watson I presume?” 

“Y...you?” 

“ME!” He beams. “Jim Moriarty. It is a pleasure.” 

“J...Jim?” John struggles. He shakes his head. He closes his eyes tightly and opens them again. 

“Are you surprised John? Tell me you are!” Moriarty smiles. 

“I... what is this? You just work in IT.” 

Moriarty laughs, managing to show every single one of his teeth as he does so. 

“Yep, Jim from IT. He was fun.” He gives a small salute before taking out his phone again and turning his back to him. John looks up at him carefully.

“I’m not tied up very well.” He says. “You didn’t intend on keeping me here.”

“What’s that?” He turns. “Oh no, not very long, I’ve much more exciting plans for you.”

“The bomb.” 

“The bomb.” Moriarty grins and moves forward to open John’s coat.

John pulls his hands free, which really doesn’t take long given the loose rope. He stands up, almost slipping on the wet floor. 

Moriarty watches him, chewing gum with his mouth open, all the while with that toothy grin on his face. 

“Why?” John asks, but just as Moriarty is about to respond, John smirks himself. “Oh.”

“Oh?” The grin fades a little.

“You think you can get to him through me.”

He lets his smile take up his face again and resumes chewing on his gum.

“I don’t think Dr Watson, I know.” 

The distant sound of a door opening and swinging shut interrupts them. Moriarty smiles at him and points at his shoulder. John looks down and sees an earpiece hanging out of his shirt, just under the collar of his coat. He picks it up and places it in his ear.

“Good.” Moriarty says. “You know how to play. Doesn’t that make it easy for me.” He smiles and walks away, quietly leaving the room. 

John looks down at his body. He’s been placed in a vest, a vest covered in explosives. He knows how to play, one deviation from the script and ... boom.

“Ready Johnny?” Came a voice in his ear.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” 

“Of course you do!” John could hear that smile even in his voice. “You can play and let me have my fun, or you can just say goodbye now.”

“Fine.” 

“Good boy. Now, leave the room slowly, he’s waiting. Walk out and stop when you can face him, I want you to look him right in the eye as it dawns on him.” 

“That I’m the bomber?”

“Exactly!” He beams. “Oh you are good.” 

John walks slowly out of the changing room, five paces down a small corridor and out into the pool room. 

Sherlock turns when he hears him. 

“John?”

“This is a turn up, isn’t it?” He says, repeating the words in his ear. “Didn’t expect this, did you, Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s face changes with every millisecond that passed. A slow, horrific new idea is entering his brain and explicable though it was, logical it was not. 

John, poor lost John, still suffering all that post war trauma, the nightmares, the psychosomatic limp... something was bound to snap.

Slowly, John opens his coat and a new comprehension enters Sherlock’s eyes. And he feels immediately bad for questioning John, for thinking him capable, likely even.

“Are you hurt?” He asks quickly. “Where is he?”

“I gave you my number,” Moriarty calls from the shadows. “I hoped you’d call.” 

Sherlock looks at John and John tries to convey everything with his eyes, he knows Sherlock understands at once, of course he does.

Slowly, Sherlock raises the gun in his hand to shoulder level and holds it steady whilst pointing it directly at Moriarty’s head.

“That’s not very nice,” Moriarty says, still smiling. “Not really fair. I am unarmed.”

“Of course you are,” John snorts. Sherlock casts him a quick glance but returns his focus to Moriarty almost at once.

A single red spot of light appears on John’s chest and Sherlock lets his rigid arm loosen ever so slightly.

“I’m good,” Moriarty says. “No, I’m better than good, I’m better than you.”

“Highly unlikely,” Sherlock retorts.

“You didn’t figure me out, did you?” He walks past John. Hands in his pockets, he approaches Sherlock with calm confidence.

John takes a leap, wrapping his arms tightly around Moriarty’s chest.

“Run Sherlock!” He rushes. “Run before they –”

He breaks off; the single red spot of light has already appeared on Sherlock’s chest. It appears on his chest, his stomach, his forehead, his arm and his cheek. 

“Oh he’s cute.” Moriarty smiles. “I should get a live-in one.” 

“What do you want?” Sherlock says almost letting his anger betray him.

“I’m just here to give you a friendly warning Sherlock,” Moriarty says and licks his lips, tasting the way his name feels on his lips. “Stop this investigation, leave me alone to do as I please, if you don’t...”

“What? You’ll kill me?” 

“No, that wouldn’t last long enough for me.” Moriarty says. He puts his face right up to the barrel of the gun Sherlock is still holding. “If you don’t stop, I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you.”

“Haven’t you heard? I don’t have one.”

“We both know that’s not true.” 

“What if I were to kill you? Right now?” Sherlock says, making his arm rigid again.

“Well, that would be a surprise, but not one you could enjoy for long.” 

Moriarty turns and walks back down the length of the pool. Sherlock casts another glance at John who was watching him walk away, he hasn’t relaxed, he hasn’t sensed that Moriarty is leaving like he has, poor John with his simple little brain. He wants to tell him it’s okay, that Jim has made his threats and that is his game, he is done for the –

“NOPE!” Moriarty smiles and turns back to them. “I can’t do it! I was just going to leave! Can you believe that?”

Sherlock tenses his arm again, his shoulder locks in place.

“Oh!” Moriarty grins. “You did, didn’t you?”

“I knew you weren’t done.” John says quietly.

“Of course you did, little man.” Moriarty mocks and looks right through him.

“I will shoot you.” Sherlock says.

“No you won’t.” Moriarty says. “Not before one of mine burns a hole through in each of your foreheads. I don’t like getting my hands dirty. But I have plenty of –”

He stops as a phone beguns ringing, loudly. Sherlock looks to John who is still focused on Moriarty. 

“I just – I have to get this.” He says and pulls his phone out of his pocket. “What? WHAT DID YOU SAY? If you don’t have what you say you have...Fine.”

Moriarty hangs up and puts the phone back in his pocket. He looks back to the two men and smiles.

“I’m off.”

“She’ll keep it for herself.” John says quietly. Neither of them looks at him.

“I’ll be seeing you Sherlock.” Moriarty says. He turns and leaves the pool room. Within seconds the red targets disappear from their torsos and all is silent.

Sherlock hurries forward and rips the bomb jacket from John’s body, he kicks it away and quickly scans the room.

“We’re alone, he’s gone.” John says, breathing heavily.

“So it would seem.” Sherlock sighs. “What you did... then... that was... thank you.”

John looks up at his friend and gives a curt nod, knowing that any further sense of affection would just annoy him.

Within twenty minutes they were stepping out of a cab and entering their flat. Sherlock put the gun on the coffee table. He’d had a tight grasp of it in his pocket since the poolside, gripping it the entire journey home.

“We’re out of tea.” John says before even taking off his coat.

“What?”

“Tea, Sherlock, there’s none. I’ll go and get some.” 

“Mmm.” 

Sherlock ignores him and falls into a slump on the sofa. John rolls his eyes, turns on his heels and leaves for the shop.

Moriarty takes a sip of his tea, smiling smugly at the memory of his day. A successful afternoon at the pool, followed by an even more profitable meeting with an old client. 

He plays out the scene with Sherlock in his head, keeping his eyes closed to enjoy the replays of Sherlock’s face. Each change of emotion, each dawning of understanding that there is someone who can beat him. Moriarty drinks it up. 

Suddenly he sits up fast and lets his mug fall to the floor with a crash. A single line of conversation screams in his ears.

“She’ll keep it for herself.” 

Those weren’t Sherlock’s words but John’s. John Watson.

Moriarty stands up. He walks to the window and puts a hand on either side of the frame, resting his head against the cool glass. Eyes still closed he replays everything John said and did throughout the day.

“I knew you weren’t done.”

“You think you can get to him through me.”

“The bomb.”

He hadn’t told Sherlock’s little pet any of those things. He mentioned the bomb before even seeing it.

The thoughts running around Moriarty’s head seemed ... illogical, unlikely, almost ridiculous. But not impossible.

“I’ll have to find out for myself.” He whispers to himself, making steam appear on the cold window.

He pulls out his phone and demands a car.


	2. Tighter Rope.

Sherlock doesn’t count the time that passes, but he knows they returned to the flat at nine forty four in the evening and that it’s now one eighteen the following morning.

He hasn’t closed his eyes, he hasn’t fallen asleep and he hasn’t lost his hearing. He knows that it doesn’t take four hours and thirty four minutes to go and get some tea bags, perhaps milk too, from the shop that’s only a seventeen minute walk away.

He pulls himself up to a sitting position.

“JOHN?” He calls loudly. “JOHN?”

Sherlock stands and walks up to John’s bedroom at the top of the stairs. He pushes open the door, not pausing to knock. 

“John?” 

He looks around. John isn’t there. He knows he isn’t there, he would have heard him, his shoes aren’t at the bottom of the bed and his jacket isn’t hung on the door. His pyjamas are still folded on top of his pillow, his bed made, his toothbrush dry and his curtains open. All that and he didn’t hear him come in.

He walks down to the kitchen and walks twice around the table. He opens the fridge but he’s not entirely sure why. There is milk.

He trots down and opens the door to Ms Hudson’s flat. She’s asleep and won’t wake and he knows this because she takes her medication before she gets into bed, which is why the flat smells of it and still has a smoky residue as she hasn’t opened any of the windows and only put out her “medication” three hours and twelve minutes ago. 

He walks into the living room and it is empty. There is only one bedroom and Sherlock is confident she and John are not soliciting some sordid affair under his very nose. Or living room as it were.

He leaves and pulls the door shut, quietly, even though he knows she won’t be roused. He walks back to his flat and resumes his slump on the sofa. He stares at the same inch by inch square he has been staring at since they returned. John is at Sarah’s. Or Mary’s. Or Margaret’s. Whichever girl he is with at the moment, that’s where he is.

John is traumatised. He has been through a shocking experience, captivity and explosives and guns and criminals. It is only logical that John should leave and seek the comfort of someone who cares for him in a way that Sherlock cannot after such an evening. 

The sun has risen and brought with it a brand new day when Ms Hudson lets herself into their flat as is her prerogative and places a box on the coffee table.

“What is it?” Sherlock asks.

“It was just delivered.” She responds.

“What is it?” He repeats.

“I don’t know.” She sighs. “I’m your landlady, not your post woman.”

“You brought it up.” 

“Because you weren’t answering the bell!” She squeaks. “Where’s John?”

“Girlfriends,”

“Oh, Annie is nice,” She says and Sherlock smirks.

“Open it then,” Sherlock commands.

Ms Hudson opens her mouth to argue and realises it is fruitless. She retrieves a pair of scissors from the kitchen and cuts the parcel tape from the cardboard. She places the scissors down, pulls the tape off and opens the bag.

“Oh... I... is it...?” 

Sherlock turns and sees her pulling a soft, cream coloured, knitted cable jumper from the box. 

-

His neck aches. He blinks a few times and quicker than before realises what’s going on. His head snaps up and Moriarty sits opposite him, carving slices of an apple with a pocket knife and slipping them into his mouth. 

They are in a large open space. A warehouse. It is empty but for the two of them. John is tied to a broken plastic chair. The jagged edge digs into his back where he is forced against it. His hands are tied tighter this time, much tighter. His ankles are also bound by the same thick rope, bound to the legs of the chair. The legs are narrow so his knees are out above them leaving his crotch exposed, though he is fully dressed from the waist down. His top half is missing his jacket and his jumper, leaving him in just a grey t-shirt. The bag that contains teabags is at his right foot.

Moriarty sits in a lavish, green armchair. It should look out of place here, but it doesn’t. With him sat upon it, it almost feels as if the warehouse was constructed around him and that he’d been sat on his throne for years.

“I’m being kept then, am I?” John says. “This time.”

“I’ve been going over things.” Moriarty replies. 

“You wonder how I knew?” 

Moriarty raises his eyebrow and sits forward in spite of himself. He brings his hands together and rests his chin on top of them. The smirk remains etched onto his lips, but it has become an intrigued smirk. Intrigued and inquisitive. 

“You don’t want to ask. You’ll just sit. You’ll wait.” John says, trying to portray the tired, confident John that Sherlock would want him to be. 

“It seems I don’t need to say a word,” Moriarty whispers. It is a whisper too, but they are in such an empty room, that nothing distracts from his words.

John looks around again. Black, metal beams hold the structure together. There are several holes in the roof and not a single window still contains glass. He can hear nothing but Moriarty’s slow, steady breathing. Not a car, not a rustle of leaves on trees. Are they still in London? What time is it? It’s light out, a dusky pink kind of light which tells him its morning still.

A crunch brings him back to his companion and Moriarty is eating an apple again. He’s using his teeth this time. Not the knife. It’s not needed, John’s seen it already so he knows the threat is there. 

“Okay.” He says and stands up, casting the apple core aside. “I’m curious. How did you know I was speaking to a woman?”

“What?”

“At the pool, you said ‘she’ll keep it for herself’,” Moriarty takes three steps and lowers his face to look John in the eye. “Did she tell you?”

“No.”

“Good. I believe you.” Moriarty stretches up. “How did you know I wasn’t done?”

“You weren’t.”

“I wasn’t, no. But how did you know?” He emphasises the word, and John knows that it’s because Sherlock thought otherwise, the great Sherlock Holmes was convinced so why wasn’t John Watson? Little, boring, John Watson.

“I just... I know things.” John says. 

“Obviously.” Moriarty scoffs. “But how?”

“I ...”

“You need to tell me Dr Watson. You know you do, if you know all these things like you say... you know you have to tell me.” Moriarty is behind him now. 

John bites his lip, twisting it in his mouth, he’s not told anyone, not his own sister, not Sherlock. But he has to tell him, he’s right.

“I’m clairvoyant.” He says it in a small voice but knows that Moriarty has heard.

There is a pause lasting almost forty seconds before Moriarty crumples into a fit of laughter. He is overcome with loud, mocking bursts of laughter.

“Clairvoyant?” He repeats. “CLAIRVOYANT? What do you think this is? Some kind of television show? This is real life Johnny boy. Tell me the truth.”

“I have told you the truth.” John says plainly.

In a swift motion Moriarty grabs John by the hair, pulling him backwards, and the smooth, ice cold edge of a blade is pressed against his throat.

“Don’t make me remind you why you need to be truthful here Johnny,” He whispers, his lips pressed up against John’s cheek.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” John replies. He does his best but inevitably flinches as the point of the blade nicks a cut into his throat. 

It isn’t deep, it isn’t fatal, but he feels the warm trickle of blood run down his neck and creep under the collar of his t-shirt.

Moriarty walks back around him and throws himself back into his armchair. 

“Now Johnny, are we ready to behave? Or should I start round two?” He asks, twirling the knife once then looking over at him.

“You have a brother,” John says. 

Moriarty immediately jumps back up. Nobody knows that. Nobody.


	3. Cracks in the concrete.

The door to the lab opens and it’s Molly who enters. She’s not alone and he knows it’s Lestrade before he looks up. He can smell his two day old aftershave from here.

“Molly called me,” Lestrade says. “She says you’ve been here all night.”

“I’m sorry Sherlock, but you weren’t being very responsive and he always manages to get something out of you.” She says quickly.

“Even if it is just irritation.” Lestrade mutters. “Well, what are you doing?”

Sherlock says nothing.

“He’s just been analysing that jumper for hours on end.” Molly whispers.

“Is it from a case? I’ve not had you in for over a week now,” Lestrade says. “Sherlock, you can’t just help yourself to case material! That is evidence. I’m going to have to confiscate it.”

“Sherlock, can’t you just say something?” Molly begs.

There is a pause that lasts thirty seven seconds before Sherlock stands up, slowly. He pushes the stool out from underneath him and it makes an uncomfortably loud scrape across the floor. 

Lestrade looks to Molly who shrugs and bites her lip, her eyes are wet, almost tearing up with the worry she feels. Sherlock can go for hours without speaking but he usually makes some kind of recognition of her presence. 

Suddenly, Sherlock grabs the jumper, he holds it tightly and sweeps an angry arm across the bench, causing everything to fall off the desk causing an almighty crash. The microscope breaks, glass smashes, dust and tweezers and test tubes and chemicals are everywhere.

Molly puts her hand to her mouth and turns her head into Lestrade’s shoulder. He squeezes her arm and together they take a tentative step forward. Sherlock’s face is buried in the cream wool, his fist clenched tightly around it whilst his other hand is desperately clutching the side.

“Sherlock?” Molly tries, her voice wavering.

“JOHN.” Sherlock roars. 

Molly jumps and a tear falls from her eye.

“Wh...where is he?” Lestrade asks.

“I don’t know.”

Molly and Lestrade share another look but neither of them say a single word. It is clear how much pain it has caused Sherlock to admit he doesn’t know something. In all their years of acquaintance, neither Molly, nor Lestrade has ever known Sherlock like this. 

“Theories?” Lestrade asks quietly.

“One.” Sherlock states. “Moriarty.” 

“Who?” Lestrade asks.

“Jim?” Molly is lost.

Sherlock turns, looks at her carefully, doesn’t spare Lestrade a glance and storms from the lab, letting the doors bang behind him, still holding the jumper with all the strength he can muster to his fist.

“Who is Jim?” Lestrade asks.

“Oh... well he worked in IT, and we sort of, went out a few times, for a few weeks. But then, well, he umm...”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lestrade says, sensing that she’s uncomfortable.

“Why does Sherlock think he’s with John though?” Molly says. Then she thinks. Then she realises something ridiculous. Then she excuses herself and leaves Lestrade alone.

-

John wakes up and realises he isn’t tied up. That makes for a first. He’s actually in a bed. 

It’s a camp bed, low on the floor, metal frame, a very thin mattress. One thin pillow and one green sheet. It’s dark green. Khaki green. Army green. 

John sighs and swings himself round to a sitting position. He is in a long, dark room, not pitch black but he certainly needs to adjust his eyes. There is a single strip of light coming from a buzzing box on a low ceiling. Being so short, he can stand up in it, but thinks with a stirring in his chest that Sherlock wouldn’t be able to.

He guesses basement. Sherlock would know. He’d know in an instant with that mind of his. 

Other than the bed, there are boxes. Cardboard boxes piled up to the ceiling, taking up a good two thirds of the room. A small desk is at the same end of the room as the bed, with a chair and a blue plastic crate, overturned next to it.

He walks over. On the desk is a pot of pens and a pad of paper. There is a small bottle of still water. He picks it up and inspects the seal. It appears in tact so he pulls off the lid and takes a swig. As soon as the liquid hits his throat he relishes in it and realises how dry his mouth must have been. 

He looks around again and realises there is no ventilation in this room. Slowly he walks the perimeter and hears nothing. He sees nothing that will help him. He senses nothing in his mind which tells him there is nobody around to read. Not for miles. 

When he wants to, John can read somebody who is at a maximum of two point six miles away. That person will come to him as clear as if they were sat next to him, telling him their deepest, darkest secrets. But he feels nothing now, which tells him he is alone. Wherever his captor is, it is not in this building with him.

If it is a building. He’s only guessing basement because of the boxes, it could be a bunker or a shed. 

John decides to open a box. He pulls one down and sets it on the floor. He kneels down next to it and pulls off the tape. It’s cheap, thin, brown parcel tape, and it’s been carelessly pushed over the box in such a way that suggests the contents aren’t much cared for.

He finds clothes. Mostly t-shirts of different colours and designs, a couple of sweaters and two pairs of gloves. The clothes are sized Medium. They’re not in a bad condition, wear wise, though they reek of damp and mould and suggest they’ve been here for over a year.

He pushes it aside and pulls down another box. It’s heavier and full of shoes. Trainers mostly. There are two pairs of work boots, worn through and not a single pair of dress shoes. They smell worse than the shirts so he quickly does that back up and pulls another box to him.

This one is full of notebooks. Each notebook begins with a date and then is full of some kind of code. It’s all in shorthand. He flicks through five different notebooks but not one of them makes any sense to him. He doesn’t know what they mean. 

Frustrated he kicks the box back to the pile and throws himself back onto the bed. The sheet irritates the back of his neck and his bare arms and he is thrown back to an army base under a burning sun. His shoulder wound bites him and his leg gives an involuntary shudder as his ears are full of gunshots, explosions, shouts and screams.

He forces his eyes open and commands his mind to think of something else. He looks up at the ceiling and sees a crack running all along the ceiling. He stands up and traces it back along the room, where it disappears into the pile of boxes.

With some work he pulls them all out. Sweat begins to trickle down his back and his shirt clings to his skin. It is cold in this room, but by the time the boxes are in the centre, he’s quite warm.

The crack goes all the way to the wall. He has traced it from his bed to this point and achieved nothing. 

Angrily, and because he needs to do something physical, he pushes all the boxes back against the wall. He finds the one with all the clothes in it and upturns it. He places his pillow on top of the pile of clothes and begins punching it.

He hammers that pillow with his fists, with every ounce of frustration he can find. As each hit connects he begins to cry out. It doesn’t matter that he gets louder with each yell. There is nobody here but him.

He didn’t want to tell Moriarty. He didn’t want to tell anyone, ever. In all his years of living, school, university, serving in Afghanistan, he’d not told a single soul. He’d kept it quiet, private, a secret.

It was partly that he knew people wouldn’t believe him. But mostly it was that he didn’t want the attention. John Watson is a private person and he likes to remain so. He likes a life where he can do as he pleases, where he can sit in his armchair and drink tea and listen to Sherlock play the violin after they’ve solved a case.

Sherlock.

He would know. He’d have glanced around this room and a dozen theories would have hit him. He’d have eliminated eleven of them and been left with one. He’d have paced up and down, back and forth. He’d have found something in the boxes. He’d have understood the code. He’d have followed the crack and seen that it was more than a crack not just a damn crack in the damn ceiling and they’d be out and on their way to put Moriarty in a cell he’d never escape.

John sighs and falls back on the floor. He stares up at the single light, the more he watches it the brighter it becomes until it is burning a hole in his retinas.

He casts one more glance around the room and it hits him. 

There is no door. There are no windows and no doors and he has no idea how he got in this place. He knows it’s Moriarty and that this room belongs to him but that’s all he knows. 

He realises he’s the one in the cell and that he’s the one who’ll never escape.


	4. Three Days

It is a cold, windy afternoon. The streets are quiet and the world is moving slowly. Leaves and twigs are blowing up around him as he stands resting against the tree trunk. It’s picturesque really, if you care for such things.

He is in a park. The colours surrounding him are brown, and orange and red and golden and all the colours of Autumn. The trees are almost bare. The one he leans against has three remaining leaves on its many, many branches. 

There is a lake. It is large and open and accessible. Ducks paddle happily across. An old lady sits on a bench with her dog. The dog is asleep and the old lady is throwing bread into the lake, which the ducks lap up. 

It is just the two of them in the park. Three of them, if you’re counting the dog. Which he isn’t.

The building in front of him stood upon a hill. A low wall ran around the bottom of that hill, and a single gate stood in the middle of it. There was a small hut next to that gate in which a single occupant sat to operate it. He was sixty eight, his name was Michael and he was a widower with no children and no grandchildren to speak of. His life was guarding that gate. 

It didn’t take much. Very few people ever visited. During a good year, he’d question five different people about their intentions at the premises. Four of those would be delivery trucks, performing their quarterly deliveries of food, chemicals and consumables.

Two security guards stood watch at the top of the steps that lead to the front door. One of them was George, thirty seven with a bad hip and the other was Simon, forty two with an artificial knee in his left leg. 

There wasn’t any other security outside of the building. It wasn’t needed. People didn’t try to break in and nobody knew that breaking out was a possibility.  
The building itself was a three story house. On the lowest level was a basement that was organised to an impeccable level. Shelves of chemicals, notebooks, food, supplies all sat in their correct place. 

The ground floor was made up of a large dining hall, an empty hall, supposedly for recreational purposes, three consulting rooms and one treatment room. There was a kitchen at the back of the house where two cooks prepared the food. Mary and Magda. They were twin sisters, both forty nine years old and alone in the world apart from each other. 

The first floor contained five bedrooms. The bedrooms contained a bed, a sink, a desk and an armchair. A bookshelf stood in each room and contained the same seven books as each other room. Everything was grey. The carpet, the sheets, the towels, the clothes. Grey, grey, grey. Each window was boarded up until only a three by three inch window remained. 

Two of the rooms were empty. Their occupants no longer living. Three of the rooms were occupied. Selina, twenty two was in one. Kyle, fifty six in room two. The third contained a thirty year old man called Zayn. A guard stood outside of each room, though their job had demanded little from them. Each occupant was a prisoner inside of their own mind and hadn’t tried to leave or fight or question their position. 

The most these guards had had to deal with was going in and holding them down during a nightmare, ensuring no damage occurred. To the guard, to the room, or to the occupant.

Zayn had been there for three years, two hundred and eleven days, four hours and twenty eight minutes. He is there now looking out of his three by three inch window at the small man leant against the tree at the bottom of the hill.

He shifts his position and stands up straight, no longer leaning against the tree. He walks forward just two steps. He nods. One curt nod, turns and walks away. The old woman has fallen asleep on the bench now, whilst her dog chases the ducks away.

-

Three days has passed. Sherlock hasn’t changed or showered or brushed his teeth. He has eaten a grand total of two bananas and a packet of munchies. He has drank one litre of water and nothing else.

It’s beginning to show. He doesn’t eat or drink a lot anyway, he is skinny and his cheekbones are prominent. If anyone ever saw under his shirt, they’d tell him his ribs were too visible, that nobody has hip bones that stick out that much unless they are ill.

But it has been three days and his face is tired and his palms are clammy. He has only slept for six hours over. In this sort of situation a person would lose focus and the ability to concentrate, they would be too tired to leave the flat, they would want a hot bath and a tea with honey and lemon and they would want a bed.

But this is Sherlock Holmes and the seventy two hours that have passed have only heightened his agitation. It has caused his already over active brain to move so fast it was probably humming. Yet, although it zoomed in every possible direction it always ended up at the same location.

He didn’t know.

It had never taken Sherlock longer than nine hours to crack a case and here he was, three days later and no further than he had been on Thursday when the box had been delivered. 

It was Saturday morning. John woke on Saturdays just after eight. Allowing himself an extra hour as it was the weekend, and when we went to the surgery he’d be up at seven. He would wake up, stretch and leave his room. He’d pad down the stairs on soft feet and enter the kitchen scratching his belly. He’d bid Sherlock a good morning and Sherlock would ignore him, but he’d continue to ask him if he had any plans or if they had anywhere to be. If they did, Sherlock would tell him to get dressed and not explain anything.

If they didn’t, John would make himself a cup of tea and whilst the kettle boiled he’d trot downstairs to retrieve the paper from the door. He would return, make them both a tea, place Sherlock’s on the desk, and sit in the armchair.

“You’re welcome,” he would mutter, every single time when Sherlock didn’t respond to his tea.

Sherlock would continue to ignore him, he’d be making notes, he’d be on the computer, he’d be thinking. 

John would take an hour and six or seven minutes to read the paper as he liked to read every single entry. Even the advertisements and the job opportunities. He’d fold it up, stretch, sigh and head back to the kitchen for another tea and some breakfast.

He would place a banana and an apple next to Sherlock’s empty mug, replace that with a full one and head back upstairs for a shower. 

He’d come back downstairs, just before eleven and ask Sherlock if he needed anything. Sherlock would either give him a request or ignore him and John would leave. 

But now it was nine twenty on Saturday morning and John is not in his chair, reading the newspaper and chuckling over the cartoon strip. His chair is empty. 

Sherlock sits in his own chair and glares at John’s as if it is the chair’s fault that John is not in it. 

Footsteps are heard and someone is on the stairs and Sherlock lets out a disgruntled sigh. He knows that rhythm. Step, step, click. He is angry that Lestrade has called Mycroft. 

His brother opens the door and comes in. He looks around before looking at his brother. 

“Ms Hudson.” He calls, not loudly, but she appears within seconds.

“Yes?”

“Pop on some tea and toast will you? Looks like baby brother hasn’t eaten in a while.” 

“Oh Sherlock!” Ms Hudson says, worry evident in her voice. “What have you been doing to yourself? Starving yourself won’t find him!”

“Quite.” Mycroft says. 

He walks over and Sherlock transfers his glare onto his older brother, daring him to go near John’s chair. Mycroft pulls the desk chair over and sits in that instead.

“Detective Inspector Lestrade called.” Mycroft says.

“Obviously.” Sherlock bites.

“There’s nothing at all on the jumper?” Mycroft asks.

Sherlock gives him a look and then returns his glare to the dent from John’s elbow on the cushion in his chair.

“Of course. You’d know.” Mycroft sighs.

They sit in silence until Ms Hudson returns with a tray. There is a teapot, two mugs, milk, sugar and four slices of toast with butter and jam.

“For goodness sake, eat Sherlock. What good will you be if you starve to death?” Mycroft says angrily.

“Rita Chretien survived nearly fifty days without food in Nevada.” Sherlock recites.

“Yes, well you are not Rita Chretien you are my brother so bloody eat some food.” Mycroft snaps.

Sherlock doesn’t shift his glance. He imagines John is in the chair and John is telling him to eat. 

He reaches for a piece of toast and before he realises, he has eaten all four and Ms Hudson takes the empty plate away, returning five minutes later with four more. 

She is sniffling in the corner. She presses a handkerchief to her eyes and tries to keep her sobs silent, but fails miserably. Mycroft looks over at her and she turns and hurries down the stairs.

“Do you know where Moriarty is now?” Mycroft asks. Sherlock says nothing. “You’ve got absolutely nothing to go on, have you?”

“I have a jumper.” Sherlock says. “I have a goddamn jumper and the fact that he is alive and that I have to find him. I must find him.” 

Mycroft almost makes a motion to move but simply adjusts his hold on his umbrella instead. 

“I need to find him.” Sherlock whispers. "I will find you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rita Chretien mentioned is a woman who was stranded in the Nevada wilderness for nearly fifty days and survived on trail mix and sweets whilst her husband went to find help. She was found conscious and able to speak but had lost nearly 30LBS in the process.  
> She will be fifty seven this year.
> 
> Do not try this at home. Or in your garden.


	5. Missing.

John wakes up on a sofa.

It is a deep, green sofa with a brown throw. He pulls this throw off him and sits up. The room is big, the ceiling is tall and he has to put his head right back to see to the top. Other than the sofa there is a brown rug in the middle of the room and nothing else.

He stands up and walks over to the window. He pulls back the curtains and sees nothing but green fields. These fields stretch for miles and he can’t see a sign of civilisation anywhere.

He scratches his head and wonders how he got out of that room. The same we got in, he concludes. Though he still doesn’t know how that is.

The door opens and Moriarty stands there. He doesn’t say anything. He just stands, chewing his gum and smiling that crooked grin of his. John sighs and walks over to him, Moriarty turns and leads him to the kitchen.

The table is laden with breakfast food. There are eggs of every kind, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, cereals, fruits and rows and rows of toast. John looks around, wondering what the trick is. He looks up at Moriarty but gets nothing, it is simply breakfast.

John sits down and Moriarty pours them both some tea. He drinks his whilst John studies the food.

“Eat John,” Moriarty says. “You look positively famished.”

John says nothing, not pointing out that it is his ruddy fault that he’s so bloody famished. He plates up some food and sits down at the opposite end of the table. Slowly, he cuts up some bacon and tries a bit in his mouth.

It tastes fine, and John knows that Moriarty isn’t going to poison him now he’s got all this potential. Saliva fills his mouth and his stomach grumbles loudly. He finishes his first plate of food in record time and refills it straight away, not knowing when he’ll be able to eat again.

Moriarty watches him, not speaking, not eating, just sipping his tea. John ignores him. He fills his belly with food until he physically cannot eat anything else. He wipes his mouth and throws down his napkin. He picks up his tea.

Moriarty wipes his own mouth, stands up and walks around the table. He puts a newspaper down in front of John and takes away his empty plate.

“It’s today’s.” He says. “Though I rather think they could have found a better picture.”

John picks it up and sees his own face looking up at him under a bold headline that screams MISSING.

“Read it aloud, John.” Moriarty says. John clears his throat, knowing there’s no point in protesting.

“Scotland Yard have released a desperate plea for information concerning the disappearance of Dr John Hamish Watson, missing since Wednesday evening.”

He let his eyes flick to the date, Monday. Four whole days and they’d already printed a story. This had to be Mycroft. Front page? Sherlock would hate that.

“Continue.”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade has said that they are begging for information from anyone who has seen Watson since then. He was last seen leaving his flat in Baker Street and heading to the local Sainsbury’s for teabags, failing to return home or to any of his friends houses, landlady Mrs Hudson, who is close with Watson, called upon Lestrade for information.

“There is nothing to go on, no note, no clues and the team investigating are running out of ideas. If you have any information, anything at all, please call Scotland Yard on 020 11445589.”

“Well,” Moriarty says, taking the paper. “They missed some details, didn’t they?”

“They did?” John asks and looks at him. “You sent my jumper.”

“Yes. Nothing on it though.” Moriarty smiles. “Sherlock will hate it won’t he? Front page of a paper, proving that the great Sherlock Holmes can’t even find his flatmate.”

Moriarty smirks. He’s clearing the table and loading a dishwasher. And it’s massively unnerving to watch somebody do something so normal, so domesticated, whilst being so manipulative.

He’s trying to get John to react. He wants John to get angry, to stand and yell, to perhaps let something slip about the great Sherlock Holmes.

But Moriarty forgets that John knows what he’s trying to do before he opens his mouth. John remains calm and sits staring at the space where the paper sat.

“Do you want to call him? Send him a text?”

John looks up and sees Moriarty waving his own phone around.

“You’ve had some interesting texts yourself.” He says. “Several asking where you are. A couple saying don’t let him hurt you, and one that came last night that just says ‘I will find you.’”

“You’ve had some.” John says.

“Mmm,” Moriarty replies. “Not for you to know yet though.”

Moriarty closes the dishwasher, presses the button and the cycle begins. He slips a tablet into his mouth and gulps some water. 

He walks over and stands by the kitchen door and John knows it’s time to go.

John follows him up the stairs. They walk along the hallway and up another flight of stairs. Another, shorter, corridor and through a door, a final flight of stairs, a big wooden door and they emerge on the roof. As they walk John notices a haze beginning to cloud Moriarty. Not a visible haze, but one that is making his thoughts harder to define.

A helicopter awaits them and as they appear the engine starts. John looks around and debates the height of the building. He looks back at Moriarty and he’s smirking and he knows that he can’t even consider jumping because of what Moriarty has. What he can do. And he knows that Moriarty knows this.

John takes a deep breath and lets it out in a whistle. He ducks down and walks under the spinning blades, briefly debating the consequences if he were to just shove Moriarty into them. But one look from the guy in the passenger seat and he lets it go. He climbs in the back and Moriarty climbs in to sit beside him.

“If I ask, will you tell me where we’re going?” John asks over the noise.

Moriarty indicates a pair of headphones with a microphone and John puts them over his ears. Once Moriarty’s are secure, he repeats his question.

“You mean you don’t know?” Moriarty smirks.

“I can’t read it,” John sighs. “I can’t read you.”

“Good, then it’s working.”

“What’s working?”

“Never you mind,” Moriarty smiles. “Just know that it’s pointless for you to continue trying your little trick on me. Try the driver though, he knows.”

John looks forward and studies the back of the pilot’s head.

“Paris?”

“We have work to do.” Moriarty says.

He explains no further. He has pulled out his phone and is paying John little, to no attention whatsoever. John watches the world go by below him. He studies the ground and tries to figure out where they are by how long it takes them to travel.

He wonders where his phone is. Whatever Moriarty has done to himself, he’s made it impossible for John to gage anything from him. He knows that Moriarty sees him as more than just an insignificant other in the game of life that he plays with Sherlock Holmes.

-

Sherlock is pacing.

Donovan watches him and wants to say something. She wants to go over and apologise for doubting him, she wants to say that she hopes John is okay and that she’s confident they will find him. She wants to tell him that it’s okay to be afraid.

She doesn’t. She doesn’t move. She sits and watches him pace and hopes to god that forensics finds something that he missed.

Yet even Sally Donovan can admit that Sherlock Holmes is nothing if not thorough. She knows that if he found nothing on that jumper, then two days of it being with forensics won’t bring anything new.

Sherlock finally caved and let Mycroft take it when he left Saturday night. The jumper lay over the arm of John’s chair and when Mycroft picked it up, Sherlock jumped to his feet so fast you could have guessed an electric shock.

“Just let forensics take a look,” Mycroft had said, the both of them clinging to it. “The best men will be on it.”

Sherlock looked at him and they stared each other down for a good three solid minutes.

Things that would take others hours to say passed between those two brothers in those minutes of silence until Sherlock finally let go. He followed Mycroft down the stairs and out into the car. He rode straight to Scotland Yard and followed the jumper all the way down to the forensic labs at the back of the building.

Lestrade had managed to coax him away and sit him in his office and let him have his computer whilst they worked.

He’d sat in the desk chair all night Saturday. Just after ten on Sunday morning Sherlock left the building and walked the streets of London. He talked to his homeless network but nobody had anything for him.

He went to Annie’s and questioned her for thirty seconds before clocking that she knew absolutely nothing and was as vapid as John’s previous girlfriends. He also noted that their relationship had not reached a physical level yet, even though it had been over a month and wondered why John bothered with all these shenanigans if he gained nothing from it.

But thinking of John like that had made him angry. He was angry at John for not telling him things. But then that anger turned into anger at himself because John did talk and Sherlock didn’t listen.

He was angry at himself for neglecting John when he was around and he was even angrier at himself for not knowing where John was.

Sherlock had stormed back to Scotland Yard and stood outside of the door to the labs until this very moment. He’d pulled out his phone around three o’clock that morning.

_What are you gaining from this?_

_SH_

_Oh, hello._

_JM_

_Where is he?_

_SH_

_In a room._

_JM_

_Alive?_

_SH_

_Just._

_JM_

_What does he have for you? It’s me you want._

_SH_

_Such arrogance, Holmes._

_JM_

_There is no arrogance in the truth._

_SH_

_You underestimate your doctor. That is your loss._

_JM_

_I will find him. And you._

_SH_

_It would be logical that if you found one, you’d find the other._

_JM_

_Would it?_

_SH_

_Perhaps._

_JM_

_..._

_Lost for words?_

_JM_

_I will find you. Both._

_SH_

_Do! Do join us. We have cookies!_

_JM_

_Nothing can be gained from his suffering._

_SH_

_That is no longer your concern._

_JM_

_It is always my concern._

_SH_

_Sentiment? How touching. He’s in my company now. And I don’t share my playthings._

_JM._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't put any dates on the paper or anything because I'm not so good at working out timelines! 
> 
> I also have no idea how helicopters operate so that will be mostly guesswork and from watching LOTR extras. 
> 
> Also, thanks for all the kudos and things so far, you guys are lush.
> 
> And thanks to my very good friend Gemma who gives me wonderful feedback at the end of each chapter.
> 
> And ever thanks to causeimashamed for the initial prompt. <3


	6. Frere.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's in Paris. Sherlock's getting somewhere.

John wakes up in a helicopter.

He’s fallen asleep on the journey and immediately curses himself. He wanted to keep track of the journey. He suspects Moriarty drugged his tea. He looks to his left and still can’t read a single thing from his captor. The helicopter has landed in a small green garden behind a small empty building.

He looks to the pilot who is debating where to go whilst he waits, he fancies Italian food. He looks to the passenger and he’s just thinking about how much money Moriarty is paying him to make sure John doesn’t do anything stupid or rash.

They climb out and John waits whilst the passenger talks to the pilot. Moriarty goes over, utters a few words and then indicates for John to follow him. They walk away alone.

“Your bodyguard not joining us?” John asks.

“No, I don’t think it’s necessary. Do you?”

John hesitates but shakes his head. He knows any acting out from him will just make things worse in the long run. He hates what he knows. He hates what Moriarty let him see.

It occurs to John as they walk that Moriarty has acknowledged his ability and played it to his advantage. He has let John see just enough to put him entirely under his control and then, somehow, closed himself off.

John has been able to read anyone, anywhere, since he figured out what all the voices in his head meant shortly after his eleventh birthday. This is the first time since then that he has looked at a person and not been able to read what they were thinking.

As they walk Moriarty is talking about how much he loves Paris. He is giving John a guided tour and pointing out cafes he’s eaten in and hotels he’s stayed in. John isn’t really listening. He’s looking between each passing person and trying to see if there’s anything there. Anything to give him a clue.

He looks to the sky and begins to grow dark. They stop and Moriarty buys a coffee, nothing for John. They continue to walk as night closes in around them until they finally stop in front of an incredibly beautiful nineteenth century building.

“Le Palais Garnier,” Moriarty says.

“And what are we doing here?”

“We’re to see an opera,” Moriarty smiles. “It is a massively underrated genre of theatre.”

John crinkles his brow in confusion but says nothing. He follows Moriarty across the pavement and through the doors. Their tickets are checked and they are nodded through.

They have seats at the front of the grand circle and the two of them sit in silence waiting for the show to begin. John looks around him and reads a few people but nobody is paying them any attention. There are too many people for him to be able to focus on an individual he can’t see.

Moriarty has looked to his left once and then back to the stage. John looks to the left and sees three top boxes next to each other in a row. All three have their curtains drawn and John needs to be able to see a person to read them so it is pointless to try.

The lights dim and the stage curtains open. John’s knowledge on the opera is next to nothing and he has no clue what is happening. It is, of course, entirely in French and so he sits back and watches Moriarty instead.

His captor doesn’t move throughout the performance. He watches the stage carefully and John almost wants to see an emotion, an enjoyment. Yet, although there is his trademark grin on his face, Moriarty’s eyes remain cold and empty.

The first act ends and the house lights come back up. People around them are dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs and chatting with their neighbours. Everyone is mumbling in whispered French and John feels a headache coming.

Moriarty looks to his left once more and stands quickly. He drags John up out of his seat and throws his jacket at him. They hurry from their seats, out into the corridor, down some stairs and into a bar.

There is a security guard on the door who doesn’t blink as they pass. The bar is empty apart from a barman who puts two glasses on the bar as they enter and fills them with scotch. Moriarty lets John drink both and then they sit in two armchairs.

After a few minutes the door opens and a woman comes in. She is tall and slim and beautiful. Classically so, with full ruby lips, bright eyes, dark hair and a curvaceous figure.

“Miss Adler.” Moriarty says and salutes her, but remains seated.

“Jim Moriarty I presume?” She responds.

“Indeed. This is John Watson.”

“Pleasure, Mr Watson,” She smiles and sits down.

“Go on then,” Moriarty says. “Impress me.”

“I have photographs,” She says quickly.

“John?” Moriarty asks and turns to him.

Miss Adler looks to him as well and John realises what he’s there for.

“Oh,” He clears his throat and looks at her carefully. She looks confused and her eyes flit between the two of them. “She has photographs of royalty in compromising positions,”

“Good,” Moriarty says. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s all,” Miss Adler says quickly. “How did he know what I have?”

“John?”

“That’s not all she has,” He says and he wants to apologise to her, he is sorry for being the cause of the fear creeping into her eyes.

“Not all she has.” Moriarty repeats.

“It is, that’s all.”

When she entered the room, Miss Adler was confident and proud. The woman before them now is shrinking slightly, her posture is still perfect but she seems smaller. Her eyes are giving her away.

“Tell me what it is John,” Moriarty says. 

“An email, a code, she doesn’t understand it.”

“I suggest you tell me more,” Moriarty tells her. “I mean, it doesn’t matter if you don’t because John will, but it would be better coming from you.”

Moriarty smiles and brings his hands together. John doesn’t take his gaze from her, but his own hands are entwined together and he’s wringing them around.

Miss Adler explains that she has a fragment of an email from someone in a position of security within the government and that it’s part of a code. That she’s had someone look at it but they didn’t know what it was either.

It is in a file on her phone. She shows it to Moriarty who doesn’t know, he shows John who simply shrugs.

“We can find someone to figure it all out.” Moriarty says.

He stands up and throws her phone back. She catches it and stands up too. John sighs and is the last one to stand.

“You’d do well to remember not to lie to me again Miss Adler.” Moriarty says. “I have ways and means as you can see. You must not think you can hide things from me. We will solve this little puzzle and then decide what use you will be.”

He turns and walks from the room. John follows and instead of going back into the auditorium they leave and hail a taxi. They drive back to the helicopter where the pilot and passenger are waiting.

John thinks about how scared Miss Adler was of Moriarty. He thinks about how he didn’t even need to say much to put that fear into a person. He thinks about how much he hates being at this man’s beck and call.

But mostly, he thinks about Sherlock.

-

“Sherlock! Why the hell aren’t you answering your phone?”

Sherlock doesn’t look up from his computer as Lestrade hurries in.

“We’ve had a call, someone’s come forward,” He says and Sherlock’s head snaps up.

“When? Who?”

“About an hour ago, anonymous tip off, but you’ll want to hear it.”

They speed back to Scotland Yard in Lestrade’s car. Sherlock doesn’t even protest that Donovan is in the car and that he’s forced to ride in the back.

Lestrade and Donovan sit down in his office, Sherlock doesn’t sit he just stands looking impatient. Lestrade pulls up the file on his computer and presses play.

“Hello, you’ve reached Scotland Yard.”

“I’m calling about that Watson case,” A female voice.

“Yes?”

“Well, it might be connected I don’t know. But I live out on a farm, and we have to take the dogs to be... well, there’s kids and they don’t like it when an animal is sick so we take them a few fields over to do it and anyway we were just burying him, burying Oscar and I heard a commotion and there was a bloke and he was putting another bloke in a hole.”

“In a hole?”

“Yeah, a hole.”

“Was the man alive?”

“I don’t know, he wasn’t moving but then he might just be knocked out. Anyway the other man came back out and disappeared. I didn’t go over I left.”

“Can you tell us where this happened?”

“Not exactly, I can’t tell you because what we do on our farm, it’s not... well, I mean, the law and I... and George would kill me if he found out I’d called the police. Anyway, it’s in the fields down from Welmere’s farm and that’s all I’m saying.”

The line goes dead and there is a buzzing silence in the air.

Within minutes three police cars are following Lestrade’s vehicle west out of the city. Donovan has moved to a different car and Sherlock rides in silence with the DI.

The cars slow when they reach a country lane. They are at least twenty miles out of London and there is nothing but greenery around them.

“Welmere’s farm is a mile that way,” Lestrade says pointing south. “Where do you want to start?”

Sherlock gets on his knees and inspects the ground. He moves into a field and does the same. He comes back and inspects a single patch of grass in the field to the left. He shakes his head and moves onto the next one.

“How can he possibly tell?” Donovan asks.

“I don’t know, it’s what he does.” Lestrade replies.

“He’s such a fr-”

“Don’t,” Lestrade stops her. “Not the time, alright?”

Donovan bites her lip and watches as Lestrade walks after Sherlock.

After fifteen minutes and twenty one fields, Sherlock stops and beckons Lestrade over. He hurries and stops and stares where Sherlock is pointing.

In front of them is a square of grass that is shorter than all the grass around it. A metal rod sticks out of the ground but there is nothing else distinguishing this point in the ground.

“There.” Sherlock points and in the fading sunlight they can make out the shape of the house in the distance, a house that looks abandoned.

“The house or here then?” Lestrade asks.

“Send everyone on to the house and we’ll look here.”

Lestrade radios Donovan and tells her to take everyone on to the house, she protests but he cuts her off with an order.

Sherlock yanks on the metal rod and the square of shorter grass lifts up and out of the ground.

It is barely big enough to fit them, but one after the other, they manage to slide down into a tunnel. Lestrade fumbles for his torch, but before it is in his hand Sherlock has found a switch and the tunnel comes to life under some very faint lights.

It is damp and muddy and smells foul but they move forwards. Lestrade fights the urge to hold onto the back of Sherlock’s coat, as he is terrified of what they might find and Sherlock hasn’t changed his composure one bit.

After five minutes of walking Sherlock comes to a halt. Lestrade looks to his left and right but doesn’t see anything different. Suddenly, Sherlock looks up. Lestrade follows his gaze and there is a door.

A square, green door with a black handle that Sherlock reaches out and pulls. It comes open, it hasn’t been locked and Sherlock knows they won’t find anyone.

Sherlock reaches up and puts his arms through the hole. He puts his weight on his forearms and hoists himself up before putting his arm back through and pulling Lestrade through after him.

The room is long and dark with only a strip of light. The ceiling is low and they both have to bend to fit in it. There is a bed, a small desk, a chair, a crate and a pile of boxes.

“He’s been here.” Sherlock says and Lestrade doesn’t ask how he knows.

Lestrade looks around and sees the crumpled sheets and the empty bottle of water and can tell that someone has been here recently but can’t say with the same confidence that Sherlock shows that it was John.

Sherlock is studying the room. He runs his hand over the crack in the wall. He sniffs the bottle. He sniffs the bed, he leaves a lingering hand on the pillow before going over to the boxes. He rips them open, one after the other and inspects the contents. He flicks through the notebooks and smells the jumpers and traces the length of the desk with his finger.

“He spent nights here. Three. He didn’t eat. Just this bottle of water to sustain him. He wouldn’t have known about the trap door. He wouldn’t think to figure it out and even if he had it would have been bolted shut. A gas would have been leaked into the room and he would have passed out and then been moved. I expect to the house. Let’s go.”

Lestrade doesn’t say anything. He just hurries after Sherlock as they climb back out of the hole and back down the tunnel, out of the first hole and back to his car. They race to the house and find the police officers wandering hopelessly around the garden.

“There’s nobody in,” Donovan says. “It’s empty.”

“Have any officers gone in?” Sherlock asks.

“A few, to see if there was anyone there,”

“Damn. You could have moved something. Get everyone out.”

Lestrade calls the remaining few officers out of the house. He makes to stay outside but Sherlock indicates for him to follow. Lestrade feels slightly privileged that he’s allowed in, but doesn’t voice it.

“Don’t look so smug Lestrade,” Sherlock says. “I’ve grown accustomed to having a body with me when I inspect, I’ve found that it helps actually.”

“To have someone to show off to?” Lestrade sighs.

“To talk to.” Sherlock responds and Lestrade doesn’t say anything else.

Lestrade follows Sherlock from room to room. He lingers in the living room, picks up a cushion from the sofa and inhales it. He moves to the door, he touches the frame and takes another deep breath. Then he walks to the kitchen where Lestrade notices he is still holding the cushion.

Gently, he prises it from his hands and Sherlock only lets him take it so he has both hands free to inspect this room. He studies the table, the sides and opens the dishwasher that is full of clean things.

He picks up the paper that lies on the counter and shows Lestrade that it is the paper with the front page story of John’s disappearance.

“Well?” Lestrade asks.

Sherlock takes back the cushion and throws the paper back on the side.

“He’s been here, he was moved here, left to sleep it off on the sofa. He woke up, they came in here, ate breakfast. He read the paper. They talked and left by a helicopter.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“What about that room? All those boxes, were they there just for John to look at?” Lestrade asks.

“No. They were there because Moriarty doesn’t want to see them.”

“Are they his? Moriarty’s?”

“No. They belong to his brother.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about Paris or the opera and had to use wikipedia to find places. So I apologise if things are wrong.
> 
> I've decided that this will be a sort of... alternative season two, so try not to let what you know about people who appear influence you.
> 
> There's lots of talking in this chapter so I hope it's not too boring for you all!
> 
> Thanks again for reading! And thanks to Gemma who helped me with some plot ideas this afternoon! =D


	7. Faro.

“Back to England then?” John asks.

“No, not just yet.”

“Were we? Were we still in England, in that house and that... room.” John asks.

“We were.” Moriarty responds. He doesn’t say anything else. He’s on his phone.

John sighs and watches out of the window again. He wonders if Sherlock has found anything yet. He wonders if Sherlock is okay. He misses Sherlock.

He looks to the pilot again who has no idea why they’re going to Faro.

The helicopter lands and the engine stops. The heat is overwhelming, even though he is still in just a t-shirt and jeans. It almost burns his eyes and he struggles to focus on anything. They have flown through the night and whilst it is early morning he can’t believe it is this warm already.

Moriarty hands him a pair of sunglasses. This man is so changeable. But then, John supposes he doesn’t want his weapon damaged.

Instead of walking they climb into a car with the passenger from the helicopter accompanying them this time. They drive for over two hours, from one end of Faro to the other and wind up in an area steeped in hills and ruins of once grand castles and noble homes.

They stop outside of the remains of a castle that still has one side of it intact whilst the rest appears to have been torn apart by bombs. Moriarty nods at the passenger and he walks away, down the hill and out of sight. He leads John into the ruins and they climb some broken steps.

He sits John down on a pile of rubble and walks away, dialling a number and muttering a conversation that John can’t hear.

John counts in his head. He counts because there’s nothing else to do in this blinding heat. His mouth is dry and his head aches, his stomach hurts and he needs to lie down and sleep. He counts and finds his eyes drooping.

He’s not sure if he’s slept or not when Moriarty is shaking him and his eyes snap open.

“Tut tut, Johnny boy. Mustn’t sleep.” He smirks and walks away.

John resumes counting and stares at a spot on the ground for some time until the passenger returns dragging a man by the scruff of his neck.

The man is older than John. He has the shade of skin that says he lives in this heat. He has an untidy beard and scruffy hair. His clothes are torn and John can see him shaking from his position on the upper level. John studies him carefully and he is terrified. He thought he was safe, he thought he’d never be found here.

Moriarty walks down the steps as the passenger throws the man to the floor.

“Oh Samuel,” Moriarty says. “We have been naughty, haven’t we?”

“Please,” Samuel begs, “Please...”

“Yes?” Moriarty asks and Samuel looks to him. “Please... what?”

“Please don’t...” Samuel says and John knows without reading him that Moriarty is going to make him say it. “Please don’t kill me...”

“You have time to cooperate,” Moriarty says. “Tell me where it is.”

“I... don’t know...”

“Oh but you do.” Moriarty nods and the passenger lands a heavy blow to Samuel’s face.

“I don’t I promise you...”

“Samuel, you are not cooperating,” Moriarty says and the passenger strikes again.

“Beja! Beja!” Samuel screams.

Moriarty pops a stick of gum in his mouth and grins. He turns and looks at John.

“Oh Doctor Watson!” He says, almost singing it. “Is it in Beja?”

John looks at Samuel who is confused but still begging John to agree with him. He’s lying, of course, but what does John do?

John hesitates but shakes his head.

“Not in Beja. Oh dear.” Moriarty sighs. He raises his eyebrows and the passenger hits out so hard that Samuel is forced forwards.

“Please... please...”

“Let’s try again, shall we? Where is it?”

“Aveiro,” Samuel yells.

Moriarty looks to John once more. Samuel looks up at him and his thoughts are screaming _believe me, believe me._ John looks back to Moriarty who is just looking at him with those eyes that feel nothing but say everything. _Sorry Samuel,_ John thinks, _my punishment is worse than yours._

John shakes his head.

The passenger pulls out a gun and shoots Samuel in the shoulder. He screams out. John knows from experience that a shoulder wound isn’t necessarily fatal, but it’s fucking painful.

“Last chance.” Moriarty says.

 _For God’s sake!_ John thinks, and almost screams. _Just tell the damn truth!_

Samuel looks up at John. He looks to Moriarty and lets out a whisper.

“WHAT?” Moriarty yells. “CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

“Castelo Branco,” Samuel says. He says it straight and plain. As soon as the words are out he clasps a desperate hand to his shoulder and cries out.

Moriarty looks up and John nods. Samuel has told the truth. John wants to apologise, he wants to run down and help, he is a doctor, he knows how to stem the bleeding and sustain him until he can get to a –

The gun has fired. Samuel is dead.

“But he told you!” John cries before thinking.

Moriarty looks up at him and shrugs, pouting with his bottom lip and opening his hands out to John as if to say, look I’m clean. Wasn’t me.

The passenger kicks the body over to the side and they leave it in the shade, in a corner of this abandoned wreckage of a once grand home.

Moriarty clicks his fingers and John knows it’s time to go. 


	8. Black and White.

Just as they come in to land, John is handed a bottle of water. But before he can sip Moriarty has ripped it from his grip and thrown it out of the window.

They touch down and the blades stop spinning. Moriarty looks up and down the field and up at the house that’s in the distance. John looks to it too and wonders why they have landed so far from it. He looks around and sees nothing but green fields.

Moriarty is walking up and down and getting angrier with each step. John takes a few steps forward and sees a metal rod sticking out of the ground. Is this what is making him so mad?

The pilot is already lifting off and leaving them stood in the field. The sun is setting, and the sky is turning inky black. Moriarty yells at the passenger and he disappears, running off at a racing speed.

They stand in silence for no more than ten minutes before the passenger returns with a car.

Moriarty gives John the bottle again and John drinks. Before he can spit it out again, his eyes are closing and his last line of sight is Moriarty yelling into his phone.

-

John wakes up and it is pitch black.

He can’t see a thing. He doesn’t know where he is.

Slowly, he sits up. There is a thin, ragged sheet of material beneath him. He stands up, holds his hands out in front of himself and moves forward. After five steps, his hands hit a solid surface.

It is cold and smooth and he thinks glass. He moves to his right, keeping his hands on the surface and it only takes him seven small, slow steps before he’s touched four different surfaces.

He feels his way back to the material and picks it up. He sits against the wall and pulls the blanket over him.

He doesn’t mean to, but before he can help it he’s crying. Silent sobs make his throat hurt and his body ache and his stomach retch.

John wants to hit out. He wants to yell. He wants Moriarty in front of him so he can wipe that smile from his face. He wants to do something.

Instead he sits in the dark and begins to count again. He hopes that the counting will send him back to sleep.

It doesn’t. He counts hundreds, thousands and begins to say the numbers out loud, remaining wide awake. He can’t feel anyone, he can’t read anything, he just sits in the dark.

-

Sherlock wakes up and the light that hits him is blinding.

He throws his hands to cover his eyes until he adjusts enough to inspect his surroundings.

He is in a room. A small, glass room. It measures five metres by five metres. He is in an armchair. It is red and placed exactly in the middle of the room.

He stands up and walks around, letting his fingers trail over the glass. He feels the break where the door must be, although it is impossible to see it. He knows it won’t budge, but gives it a slight push none the less.

He walks back to the armchair and looks out in the direction in which it faces. It is the one wall in the room that is black. Not painted, just unlit.

He moves forward and puts his face right up to the glass so his nose is touching it. He runs his hands all over it trying to gage something from it.

Nothing.

Before he pulls away the black turns to white with a defeaning crash and a room comes to life in front of him.

The room is rectangular and he can see a man sat in an armchair in the centre of that room too. He can’t see all of it, and judging from the placement of the chair he has visual access to half of the room.

The man that sits in the chair is average. Average build, thirties, dark hair and dressed entirely in grey. Grey linen trousers, grey plimsolls, grey t-shirt, grey hoodie.

He sits perfectly still, straight back and legs at a ninety degree angle to the floor. He looks forward at a spot at the edge of Sherlock’s wall. He stares with cold, unmoving eyes. Eyes that blink slowly and carefully as if having to do so is causing great concentration.

Sherlock hits out at the glass. He knows who that man is without asking.

“WHERE IS HE?” Sherlock screams and his voice echoes back around him. “WHERE IS JOHN?”

Sherlock punches the glass with the side of his fists, but the glass is thick and strong and even if the man can hear him he doesn’t move.


	9. Rooms

John doesn’t know how much time has passed. He stopped counting when he reached three thousand. His voice was tired and cracked and his throat hurt.

His stomach hurt. He hadn’t eaten or used the bathroom in however long he’d been sat here. There was nothing in the room to use and nobody had opened some secret hatch to push food through.

The room grows colder with every hour that passes. He is still just in a t-shirt with just that ragged blanket to hold. It feels like he is outside and night refuses to clear into morning. There is no pink horizon, no warming morning sun, no birdcall.

In the dark he is left with no choice but to relive horrid moments from his past. All of his darkest moments and memories creep on him and he has nowhere to push them.

John sees Harry lying in a pool of her own vomit. He sees paramedics lifting her and putting her in yet another ambulance. He sees his parents shaking their heads and losing hope. He feels their eyes on him, feels them boring into his soul and wanting him to do more, to do better.

In the dark, John stands in a cemetery and feels raindrops on his face as he looks down at two headstones. Too much time passed and his parents faded. Harry wasn’t sober enough to realise. She was still in the hospital bed.

He relives having to tell her and watching her face dawn with comprehension that it was probably her fault. That she stole too much of their time and selfishly spent it making them worry about her. He remembers Clara leaving and Harry just sinking deeper and deeper.

Worse than all he feels mud, sand and blood beneath his fingernails, he hears screaming and yelling and people begging for the mercy of death. He feels the Afghanistan heat burning his skin and turning his tongue to sandpaper.

Repeatedly he feels that bullet in his shoulder. He hears the shot and senses the impact. He sees the blood pouring out over his uniform and spreading out beneath him. He sees his own shooting from his own perspective, from his colleagues perspective, from his corporals and even from the man behind the gun.

John has no tears left. He is unable to summon the energy to stand up. He just lies in a crumpled heap in the corner of the room. The blanket covers his whole body.

There is still no light and it is still pitch black. He hears things but can’t focus and doesn’t know if they are real or part of his dreams.

He tries to remember Sherlock but can’t quite recall the colour of his eyes or the exact shade of his skin or the sound of his voice.

-

It has been five days. Sherlock has been woken by the bright light five times and forced to sit in it for hours on end until it is turned out and he is left to sleep. He didn’t for the first three nights but then was left with little alternative. Even he can’t avoid fatigue.

The man is always in the chair when he wakes, right up until the light goes out. Sherlock debates with himself whether he moves or not. The man remains perfectly still. He doesn’t move. He still blinks slowly. Still staring straight ahead.

Sherlock has decided that this man is there to unnerve him. To make him nervous, angry, to provoke him into some form of psychological failure.

Sherlock refuses to give his captor the pleasure.

He has spent his time going over what has happened and what he knows. He decides that Moriarty must have been waiting as he arrived. Sherlock arrived alone, of course. He sent Lestrade back to Scotland Yard and told him to take everyone with him.

Lestrade protested but obeyed. Sherlock drove Lestrade’s car on his own. He remembers stepping out of the car and nothing else.

He knows he must have been struck from behind and shouldn’t have parked beneath the tree. Leaves of gold, red and orange were all over the ground, having fallen from the trees that surrounded the duck filled lake. He remembers smelling the scene, fresh, open and damp from the previous night’s rain.

He’d only briefly glimpsed the house on the hill before falling.

Sherlock is sitting in the chair now. The chair is blood red and he does his best to ignore any inclination it could be a metaphor. His chin rests on his fingertips, his elbows on his knees. He is leant forward, staring at the man.

Sherlock has a watch but it stopped working twenty seven hours ago, yet he is confident of the time and believes the lighting of the room is recurring with the lighting of the world outside.

He has been fed. Whenever he wakes there is food waiting for him on a tray on the floor along with water and a bucket. He has eaten enough to sustain him and drunk all the water presented to him.

He is being kept for a reason. Moriarty must need him for something. 


	10. Windows.

John wakes up and notices it isn’t pitch black anymore.

He opens his eyes, jumps up and has to rub his face all over before he believes what he is seeing.

Sherlock.

He can see Sherlock in a room. There is a wall of five inch thick glass between them but he can see him.

Sherlock is sitting in a chair, a blood red chair in the middle of a room the same size and shape as his own. He is staring forwards, his chin rested on his fingertips but John can’t see what he’s watching.

He wonders if it is a trick. If it is really Sherlock he can see, but then Sherlock stands up and walks forward with such a manner that John doesn’t doubt who it is he is watching.

John moves forward slowly, not wanting to startle anything and have this dream shattered. He reaches out his hands and places them palm down on the glass. _Sherlock_ he thinks.

He doesn’t know if he can speak. He’s not used his voice or had anything to drink in so long. He tries.

“Sherlock.” It comes out in a croak but it is there. He has a voice.

“Sherlock!” He tries again and it is louder.

John repeats the name over and over until he’s yelling it as loud as he can.

“SHERLOCK!”

Sherlock doesn’t look in his direction. He can’t hear him. John begins to hit the glass even though he knows it is pointless and if the glass is thick enough that Sherlock can’t hear him, and that John can’t read him, he won’t be able to break through.

But he hits hit. He slaps it and punches it and hits out until his hands hurt and his knuckles are bloody. He continues to repeat his name over and over again until he physically can’t make a sound.

He slumps to the floor and lies on his side.

His cheek is on the floor and the room behind him is still dark and cold but John watches his neighbour and something small appears in his chest.

It is a tiny bubble of hope.

If Sherlock is here, he’ll already be figuring a way out.

-

Sherlock wakes up on the sixth day and there is a piece of paper on the tray with all of his food.

He picks it up and within seconds has realised it is a sheet of seat allocations for a flight.

He looks back at the tray and sees there is a pen. He picks it up and realises this is a test. He can’t help but smirk as he leans the sheet on the wall to his left and writes SEAT ALLOCATIONS – FLIGHT 007 – HEATHROW in capital letters under the print.

He puts it back on the tray, takes the water and walks three small steps until he is facing the man again.

There he is, as always, sitting, staring, unmoving.

Sherlock will not show it. He will not admit that it is beginning to get to him. This room. These four walls.

He has figured out everything there is to figure out. The glass is vitreous silica and has come from a factory in Northampton. There are hundreds of tiny holes in the ceiling panels, too small to see but allows ventilation so he does not suffocate. The chair is real leather from a production line in Belfast and has been dyed using paints from Ontario.

The food he gets given every day has come from Morrison’s and is the same day in day out. Porridge – Quaker Oats with semi skimmed milk. Bottled Evian water. A Morrison’s own banana and bag of Walker’s ready salted crisps, emptied into a bowl.

The tray is polyethylene terephthalate and is most commonly used for fizzy drink bottles and salad trays. It is the same tray every day and isn’t cleaned between uses.

The bucket is polypropylene plastic and is expected to serve as a lavatory.

The man in front of him sits in an armchair made from mahogany in clothes made from cheap linen from India.

Sherlock paces. He paces back and forth and inspects every wall of the room again and again. He inspects the crack where the door is and finds no trace of a handle and deduces that the door must open with force from the other side but he is always asleep when it happens.

He decides that some kind of toxin is being released into the room to make him unconscious whilst the door opens and closes because he knows he didn’t voluntarily sleep for the first three nights.

He stands on the chair and reaches up to inspect the ceiling. He feels the holes but is too short to get his whole hand on the surface.

He climbs back down and goes back to the front again.

He’s just sitting there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have used Bond Air here because that part isn't really integral to the story and I'm not so good at thinking up mysteries for them to solve. Sherlock and Moriarty are way more intelligent than me! 
> 
> Thanks for all the views and kind words, you guys <3


	11. Needles and pins.

On the eighth day Sherlock wakes up and realises the room is dark. He stands up.

He looks to his left and nearly falls.

The room is lit up whilst his own is shaded. The room is the same size and shape as his own. But there is no chair, no bucket, no tray of food.

There, right on the other side of the glass is a figure.

He looks at John and knows this vision will haunt him forever. He is thin and weak and pale. His eyes are closed and his chest is rising and falling at an alarmingly low pace.

Sherlock studies him closely, placing his palms open on the glass. He kneels down so he could be looking John right in the eyes if only they were open.

John has an arm under his head and the other is draped over his stomach. His hands are clammy and his skin is too yellow to be healthy. His shirt is loose and wrinkled from the cold sweat that is seeping out of John like his life.

Sherlock bangs on the glass and yells his name but John doesn’t stir. He stands up and looks to the roof.

“WHATEVER YOU WANT, YOU CAN HAVE IT, JUST LET HIM GO!” Sherlock yells.

Nothing.

He looks back to John and bites back every inch of emotion that threatens his composure. He can’t bare the poverty of John’s room. His own is luxury in comparison. Sherlock has been refusing food whilst John hasn’t even had the option. He feels horrendous. Does he even have water? No.

“Be strong, John,” Sherlock mutters. His hands are back on the glass and his lips are so close they’re almost touching it. “Hold on, just a little longer. I’ll get us out.”

Sherlock paces the room again. He is begging for something he missed before. He wants to have overlooked something. Now, more than ever he needs to get out. He needs to find the key to the door, he needs a window, he needs a loophole. He needs Moriarty to have made some kind of mistake.

He needs to get to John.

There is nothing and for the first time in his entire life, Sherlock Holmes feels completely lost.

He goes back to the wall that is showing him a nightmare. He sits down and crosses his legs, watching John’s face.

He sits this way for a long time.

After six hours and twenty seven minutes of watching John, the door to the room opens and Moriarty walks in.

Sherlock fights the urge to stand up and scream profanities at him, knowing that it’s what Moriarty wants him to do. He wants to see him lose control, he wants to know he’s in charge.

Sherlock watches as Moriarty approaches John and withdraws a plastic case from his pocket. It is the size of a glasses case. Turquoise in colour.

Moriarty opens it and takes a needle out of the box. He taps the end and then plunges it into John’s bare arm. Sherlock flinches at the impact. It is an involuntary flinch and he regrets it the second he does it. Moriarty smirks, waves at him through the glass and then leaves.

He realises that if Moriarty can see him, so can John. If only he’d open his eyes.

But then, he doesn’t want John to open his eyes at all. He doesn’t want John to see him locked in a room too. He doesn’t want John to know he has food and water and a toilet. Albeit a poor excuse for one, but it’s more than John has.

Sherlock doesn’t want John to know that he’s trapped too. He wants him to be asleep until he can get him home.

-

Lestrade hasn’t slept properly in nearly ten days.

He sat at Scotland Yard for thirteen hours waiting for Sherlock to return. He called him a hundred times. He sent a car to Baker Street, to St Barts, and one trailing every known underground hovel for the homeless he could think of.

They all came back negative.

With a horrible dawning, he raised his hands to his face and knew that Sherlock had been caught too.

They sped back to the house and ransacked the place. They tore apart the bunker and found nothing. No clues, no evidence, nothing to help him find his consulting detective and his doctor.

He knew that had Sherlock been there, and they were in search of someone else, they’d have found them by now.

But it had been ten days and even Donovan hadn’t made a single sarcastic comment.

Lestrade is stood, staring out of his office window. Molly sits quietly in a chair in the corner staring at a spot on the floor. Her eyes are red and puffy and she looks thin and tired.

Two coffees have gone cold on the table and a pile of unopened bags of crisps, untouched croissants and intact apples lay on the table.

Mycroft appears in the doorway. Neither of them have heard him approach but they both turn to look to him standing there.

His face remains impassive and Lestrade wants to punch it just to see some emotion there. He wants to shake him and scream that his brother is missing and he should damn well do something about it. _Dammit Mycroft, you are the British Government for God’s sake._

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything and neither does Molly and neither does Mycroft.

Mycroft doesn’t need to ask to know that they have no developments. That no new evidence has appeared. That no farmer out to kill the dogs has come forward with a vital piece of information.

He’s had the secret service, the royal air force and soldiers out looking for his brother and his roommate. He’s put the best men on the job.

Yet even Mycroft knows that the only man who could find them is half of the missing party.

Silently he joins Lestrade at the window. Molly rises and stands the other side of them. The three of them stare out at the view and each of them hope, beg and pray for something, anything. 


	12. Brothers.

Moriarty enters John’s room three more times and administers three more needles.

It is bringing his breathing back to a steady pace and Sherlock notes that John has stopped sweating. Whatever is in the injections is helping John and Sherlock fears that it is to make him strong enough to wake up, so that a new torture may be conducted.

Sherlock thinks he hears the gas as it is released into the room. This time he is ready for it. He stands up and fights it.

Clear, odourless gas fills the room and he feels his body weaken. He knows this is what has happened every night previously, and sent him straight to sleep. But he grips the back of the chair and wills himself to stay alert.

He looks to John for strength and sees that John is stirring. This encourages him. He opens his mouth and breathes slowly. He demands his mind to focus.

It works. He falls to the ground but he is conscious. He hears the gas stop. He counts to ten and hears the door open. He feels himself being lifted into the chair.

He can’t fight it. He is too weakened from the gas, but he is still awake.

He feels his arms being pulled behind the chair and bound together at the wrists. His legs are tied to each front leg of the chair.

A contraption is attached to the back of the chair. It is bolted down and his head is forced into a metal round that cements it in a forward facing position. He can see the room in front of him that is alight once more. He can’t look right. He can’t look left and see John.

He can only see the man and his cold, empty, staring eyes.

-

John stirs. His head is heavy and every inch of him aches.

He is vaguely aware that he hasn’t eaten or drank a thing in days but he feels stronger than he has in a while.

He rubs his arm and looks down to see a faint bruise developing. He runs a hand through his hair and then realises he can see the room next to him.

Sherlock is on the floor. He appears to be struggling against something, but he is looking right at him.

John lifts a heavy arm and puts his hand to the glass. Sherlock makes a motion which might be an attempt to reach out his own hand, but before he can the door opens and Moriarty enters.

He lifts Sherlock and binds him to the chair. He puts a black metal device on the back and fixes his head into position.

Sherlock can’t move now. He is forced to look forward.

There is a noise that sounds like the air being let out of a balloon and suddenly John’s head is full of Sherlock’s thoughts.

They are moving so fast they are a mess. John can’t make sense of them. Except to know that Sherlock is afraid, and not for his own well being. Sherlock is afraid for John. He desperately wants to look him the eyes and can’t. He hates that his limbs are too weak to fight and he wants to hold Moriarty down and force him to watch as he releases his anger onto every inch of him.

John can’t read Moriarty. Whatever he did to stop it when they were travelling is still working.

Moriarty finishes his work and steps away. He looks to John and blows him a kiss.

He turns and leaves the room.

Sherlock sits still and John knows it’s because he has no choice.

John has no strength whatsoever. He wants nothing more than to break down this glass wall and tear those bindings from Sherlock’s wrists and ankles. He wants to pull the metal from around his head and get them the hell out.

He manages to pull himself up so he is standing. He sways slightly, so rests his forehead against the cold glass, not taking his eyes from the chair in which Sherlock is being held.

For a second John thinks the door to his room is opening, but he soon realises the noise is too loud for that. He looks forward and realises the wall in front of him is rising slowly from the ground and disappearing into the ceiling.

His breathing quickens and he feels his heart beating in his neck. A light comes on and he sees a man dressed all in grey sitting in a chair in the middle of a rectangular room.

He knows who that man is and he doesn’t want to. He reads the man and there is nothing. Not that he can’t read him, there is just nothing in his mind to read. It is an empty shell. Cold and empty like his eyes that stare endlessly at the point that divides his room and the one in which Sherlock sits.

With a loud crunch the wall has fully risen into the roof and there is nothing separating John from this man. He looks to his right and like a punch to the stomach realises the wall is still between him and Sherlock and he can’t get to the one person he so desperately wants to.

The man does not move. He does not react to the fact he can reach John now, or that John can reach him.

Tentatively, John takes a step forward. Just one. Then a door to the left opens and Moriarty walks in. John immediately retraces the step he took.

“John,” Moriarty smiles. “This is my brother, Zayn.”

John looks to him but still, Zayn remains still and silent.

“I’m sure you knew that already though, didn’t you?” Moriarty moves to him and lays a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

He squeezes it, only lightly, but a squeeze none the less and quicker than he can blink Zayn is up, out of the chair. He has grabbed the front of John’s shirt and pulled him forward. Zayn throws him to the floor with and he lands with a heavy thump that reverberates through his already aching limbs.

Zayn reaches down and roughly turns his head so that John can see the room in front of this one. Sherlock has nowhere to look but down at his friend. The glass is between them but John can read him clearer than the morning news and wants to silence all the thoughts that don’t belong to him.

Sherlock wants to close his eyes but can’t physically make them shut. He struggles endlessly and hopelessly against the cord that binds him. He pulls his wrists so much that it cuts into him and his ankles and wrists start to bleed. But he can’t move.

“My Father,” Moriarty says, “Was not a very nice man. He didn’t want children. He made sure we knew that. He took it out on Zayn mostly. Taught him what a disappointment we were. He made me watch.”

Moriarty is pacing and John realises that Sherlock can hear what’s happening in the room as well as see it.

“When we were thirteen,” Moriarty continues, “Daddy did something so bad that Zayn never spoke again. He hasn’t opened his mouth since. Daddy died. People die and it took him long enough. We were sent away. Zayn went to a home for people who were... difficult. They said he was crazy. Institution to institution he went. Being messed around by doctors and nurses and the police and every person who was in authority and was supposed to make him better,”

“So that’s why,” John hears Sherlock think. “You hate everyone because nobody helped him.”

John looks around. He realises that Sherlock can hear them but they can’t hear Sherlock.

“Eventually, just over three years ago he winds up in January Home, a pretty little house on a hill, where guards aren’t needed. People only go end up there once they’ve been everywhere else.”

Moriarty walks around so he is stood facing Sherlock, next to John. He kneels down and softly strokes John’s hair.

“Prisoners in their own mind. They don’t even know they could escape if they wanted to. Zayn was in that room of grey for so long. He could see a tree when he looked out of the window. I’d stand there sometimes but I don’t think he even thinks I’m real anymore.”

Sherlock looks to John. John looks to Sherlock. Their eyes lock and they can’t express how much they need or want each other anymore than their eyes say.

“All Zayn knows is what Daddy taught him. And a few choice words that can make him react. He’s like a computer really. A couple of demands and he does what he’s needed. He can’t even tell who it is he’s attacking.”

John sees the blow coming in Sherlock’s eyes but it doesn’t stop him yelling out as Zayn’s foot connects with his back. It is a hard, quick kick with a surprising amount of strength from someone so small and only wearing plimsolls.

The blows come in quick succession and John manages to stop himself crying out even though each one is more painful that the one before.

John is roughly pulled up and thrown into the chair.

“Daddy liked the crowbar most.” Moriarty says with too much glee.

John is too weak to fight. He can’t move his legs away or withdraw his arms before Zayn has struck each limb three times over. He feels blood trickling down into his boots and running off the end of his fingertips as he sits, slumped over the chair.

Sherlock is yelling, screaming, demanding to be heard.

“I warned you Sherlock,” Moriarty says. “I told you to stay away and leave me alone. I knew you wouldn’t. I can’t have you around.”

Sherlock’s face is red and his wrists are bleeding and John wants to tell him not to fight, that it’s okay, it’s not worth it. But Sherlock fights and screams louder still.

“I’m just doing what I promised. I’m burning the heart out of you.” Moriarty runs and finger down John’s face and across his lips and John wants to hit him.

He wants to stand up and hit Moriarty so hard he falls to the floor but no food or water for ten days and whatever drugs have been poured into him have taken their toll and he can’t even lift his head.

Moriarty leans in and places a gentle kiss on John’s lips and John feels bile rise to his throat. Sherlock is so shocked by this simple action that he is momentarily frozen.

But John feels Zayn raise his arm and Sherlock begins struggling again.

Zayn hits him. He hits him again and again. He hands a heavy blow with the metal rod on his hand and knows, even without his medical training, that at least four bones in his right hand have shattered. Zayn strikes his head and John’s vision blurs, his cheekbone has taken the impact and is at the very least severely fractured.

John wants to black out. He wants to lose consciousness. He almost begs for death. It is not the pain in his hand or his face or any other part of his body that is causing him to long for the release of dying. It is Sherlock. It is having no choice but to hear Sherlock’s mind.

And Sherlock's mind is screaming. Nothing has ever caused Sherlock this much distress. His very heart is crying out for a miracle. John can hear his mind, feel his heart, sense the blood racing through his circulatory system trying to find a way out. John can ignore his own agony because the pain emanating from Sherlock is far worse. It is too much to bare.

John wants to open his mouth and tell Moriarty that it’s okay, he can kill him, just stop this torture. Stop him being able to hear Sherlock. Please.

He knows this next blow will do it. It hits and everything is blissfully black.

 


	13. Buttons.

Sherlock knows that John is unconscious. That last blow to the side of his head has knocked him out and yet Zayn is still hitting him.

Zayn has cast the crowbar aside and is laying fists on every inch of John’s stomach and chest and Sherlock is crying out for him to stop.

Moriarty finally raises a hand and Zayn ceases his attack. He stands still looking down at the mess he has created of John’s body and is completely emotionless.

“To kill you now? Or to wait until John wakes up?” Moriarty says. He is also looking down at John.

Sherlock sits still in his chair and watches Moriarty carefully. He wants to ask him for death. He wants to tell him that John is harmless, that he won’t ever find Moriarty without Sherlock’s help and that there is no reason for him to die. He wants to beg him to get him to a hospital.

John is almost unrecognisable. His face is covered in blood and Sherlock doesn’t want to admit that the white in his cheek is bone. The grey t-shirt he was wearing is a different colour now, his arms are battered and bruised and Sherlock doesn’t want to see his legs or his back or his stomach.

Zayn has picked up the crowbar and is looking at it like he doesn’t understand what it is. Moriarty is ignoring him. He is looking at Sherlock and pretending to debate what to do.

Moriarty walks forward and runs his finger over the glass that separates the two rooms.

“There’s always a story behind a good villain, isn’t there?” Moriarty says. “Abusive Father. Dead Mother. Destructive childhood. How . . . usual.” He sighs. “Isn’t it boring? Shocking home life. Ooh it would have given a therapist a field day. Zayn has seen over thirty seven and each one has given up on him. I only saw two and they both said I was a model patient, that I hadn’t let my past affect me.”

Moriarty opens his mouth and laughs loudly. It is a high pitched, genuinely amused laugh.

“Well. I’m not sure I’d agree entirely with that.” Moriarty says. “But at least I talk. Unlike Zayn. The therapists just decided he was mute and that was their diagnoses. Mute because of childhood trauma. So he got sent to institutions for mental illnesses instead of prison. Oh he did some bad things, but got let off because the jury were told he was stupid.”

Oh Moriarty’s big mistake.

Stupid.

The word stupid describes Moriarty in that moment. After mentioning trigger words and the damage they can do and then he uses one. Clearly he didn’t know all of them.

Zayn swings the crowbar with an unbelievable force and strikes his brother in the back of the head.

The look of surprise on Moriarty’s face remains etched there as he hits the glass and slides down it, falling to the floor.

Zayn hits him in the same place three times with equal force.

Sherlock watches in stunned silence as one Moriarty bludgeons the other before him. Zayn stands up after the final blow and looks Sherlock right in the eyes.

He points to him. He holds his finger directed at him for thirty four seconds before turning and pointing at John.

Then he turns and runs through the open door, disappearing from view.

-

John stays slumped unconscious in the chair for a long time. Too long.

Sherlock is growing increasingly uneasy in his position of being forced to watch. His wrists and his ankles are mangled and bloody and they hurt. He can’t get out. He can’t move.

And yet he continues to try. He is in physical pain. The metal holding his head in places has cut him considerably and blood is running down his neck and under his collar and yet he continues to try.

It’s John. It is seeing him lying there broken and beaten and it is his need to get to him. Sherlock pushes and pulls and wriggles and struggles endlessly against his bindings.

He is growing tired. His body is protesting loudly. It just wants to rest. It wants him to close his eyes. But every time they shut he remembers another blow and he snaps his eyes open and sees his friend verging on death and he tries again.

It feels like an eternity has passed before John moves.

It is a small twitch of his nose but Sherlock doesn’t miss it.

John’s brow furrows, he squeezes his eyes and opens them slowly. He blinks several times before it seems he remembers where he is.

He sits up too quickly and Sherlock registers the pain in his left eye. His right eye is swollen shut from the blow to his cheekbone. John looks to Sherlock and his eye shows all the panic and fear and Sherlock tells him that Moriarty is dead and Zayn is gone.

But John can’t hear him. The wall between them is still blocking out all sound from Sherlock’s room and John can no longer read any corner of Sherlock’s mind. He is blind to his thoughts and John feels his breathing start to speed up and his heart races and he feels faint. He reaches forward and throws up.

This is when he sees Moriarty lying on the floor. There is a pool of blood beneath his head and his face looks up to the ceiling, staring into nothing with the shadow of his grin still etched onto his lips.

John looks around and then back to Sherlock. He tries to stand up and his legs crumple beneath him. Forgetting his predicament, Sherlock tries to rush to him but is still bound tightly.

He is speaking but John remains deaf to his words. John reaches out an arm and pulls his body forward. He ignores the pain burning in his arm, from his bludgeoned fingers to his cracked elbow and pulls himself to the glass. He looks up and places his broken hand on the cold surface.

Sherlock opens his hand up. It is still bound at the wrist but he opens it fully and pushes it as far as it can go in John’s direction. John rolls himself over and pulls himself up. His eyes search the room but there is nothing in here that will help him.

He turns his head and Sherlock meets his eyes and tells him wordlessly to only do it if he can. John has no choice, not really.

John throws himself onto his front and is glad Sherlock can’t see his face as it scrunches or hear his cry as his chest collides with the floor and his cracked, possibly broken, ribs are smacked against the hard surface.

The distance between where he lay and the door looks like miles. He grits his teeth and he pulls his body across the cold stone floor. He is a soldier. He walked thirty miles with a bullet in his shoulder; he can pull himself to a door.

Sherlock doesn’t want to watch him struggle, but his head is still trapped facing the room. He knows John can do it. He believes in him. But he can't stomach witnessing his pain.

John heaves his aching mass to the door, he looks behind him and Sherlock is nodding encouragingly at him. He looks to the floor and Moriarty is still in a heap on the floor. John feels sick rising in his throat again, but he swallows it down. He looks at Sherlock once more before pulling himself through the doorway.

He is in a corridor. The floor is stone and the walls are white. Just past the door is a panel of buttons and John knows that these will control the glass walls but it is too high for him to reach.

He has to stand up. He needs to get up but there is nothing for him to hold onto. Not a single thing for him to grasp and pull himself up with.

He doesn’t cry. He won’t do it. He rolls onto his back and forces his body into a sitting position. He is immediately dizzy. He closes his eyes and tries desperately to control his breathing before he passes out again.

“Come on soldier,” He whispers to himself. “Get up. That’s an order.”

John opens his eyes. He looks at the panel. He places his left, unbroken hand on the floor and with every ounce of strength he can find he pushes himself up onto his feet. He sways and has to place the stronger of his hands onto the wall to steady himself.

He has to blink several times again to bring the panel into focus. He knows his time is limited. He can feel his head buzzing and his legs are shaking. He aches and stings and burns and he’ll be sick again any second.

He looks carefully. There are six sliding buttons in front of him and not one of them has a label. The second button from the right is at the top of the panel whilst all the others are at the bottom.

He takes a breath then lifts his hand from the wall and pushes all of the buttons to the top of the panel.

A great crunching sound comes from the rooms through the doorway and within seconds he can hear Sherlock’s voice.

“THAT’S IT JOHN! YOU’VE DONE IT, THE WALL, IT’S –”

But John hears no more. He falls to the floor and is unconscious within seconds.


	14. Down, down.

“-RISING!” Sherlock yells. There is no response. “JOHN? JOHN?!”

Sherlock can’t hear anything. He can’t see John. Was Zayn waiting for him? Has he taken him?

“JOHN! JOHN CAN YOU HEAR ME? JOHN!” Sherlock continues to shout his name but receives no answer. He panics, thinking the worst.

“JOHN!”

After seventeen minutes of screaming his name, the door twitches and Sherlock hears a low grumble.

“JOHN?”

“Mm’ here,” John mumbles.

“Are you alone?”

“Mm... yeah,” John says and Sherlock senses it is taking him a lot of effort to talk.

“You did it John, the wall is up, the room is open.”

“Good.” He says quietly.

“Okay, okay, don’t talk.” Sherlock says. “Recover your strength. I know you can, you can help me.”

John doesn’t say anything. Sherlock bites his lip and wonders what he can say. He’s not good with this sort of thing, words and comfort and encouragement. He’s good with facts and numbers and all things that are completely useless now.

After a few minutes Sherlock hears John grunt.

“John?”

“Sherlock,” John says. It is barely more than a whisper, but it travels the distance in the otherwise silent room.

“John, don’t speak.”

“Sherlock,” John repeats. “I don’t think I can.”

“Don’t think you can what?”

“Keep...on... I think I’m...”

“No, John, don’t,” Sherlock says quickly. “Don’t say it, don’t even think it.”

“But I can’t Sherlock, I can’t hear you,”

“You can hear me,” Sherlock says, misunderstanding John’s words. “You’re responding, you can hear me.”

“Everything is fading out Sherlock, it’s dark and... and I’m cold.”

John’s voice is small and soft and innocent. He sounds like a child, lost, scared and alone. Sherlock feels his pulse race.

“No, John, you’re going to be fine.” Sherlock says, with as much confidence as he can muster.

“I’m broken, Sherlock. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Sherlock struggles to keep his voice steady. “What for?”

“I’m not strong enough.” John mumbles. “I’m not strong like you.”

“John, John you are strong, you made it to the door, and you can make it back again!” Sherlock says.

John doesn’t respond. Sherlock can’t hear him anymore.

“John? JOHN!”

He shouts his name but there is no sound from the doorway. Nothing comes through. No voice reaches out to him in the emptiness. He glances at Moriarty’s motionless body and feels his eyes sting.

-

Too much time has passed. Sherlock has lost track. He is exhausted. His entire body aches. For the first time in his entire life, his mind aches too.

His vision is blurred and he is struggling to make sense of any of his thoughts. They all lead back to John. He curses the human brain for immediately thinking the worst. He tries to banish all thoughts of John not breathing from his mind, but like a broken tap they leak back into his head, drip by drip.

He is aware that he needs to sleep and he needs to eat. And he needs his basic human requirements to be fulfilled.

He is angry and he is scared.

Not for himself, he doesn’t care if he sits in this chair and wastes away, but he wants John to be okay. He needs him to be saved.

He has tried moving the chair with his own force but it has been fruitless. The chair is heavy and bolted to the floor.

He has sat still so long that the blood has stopped flowing from the wounds he inflicted upon himself struggling against his bindings.

Sherlock stares at the door and puts all his energy into willing John to be okay.

Finally, after what feels like another entire day, a noise comes from behind the door.

It is the sound of a hand being slapped to the floor. The sound of somebody pulling themselves along follows and Sherlock nearly cries with relief.

A bloody, bruised hand appears through the doorway and an arm follows. Sherlock sees the mess of fair hair on top of John’s head and actually cries out.

“John!”

John grunts in response, not speaking, instead putting all of his efforts into moving.

It takes an agonisingly long time for him to do it, but he does. John reaches Sherlock and puts his hand in Sherlock’s and pulls himself to a sitting position next to him.

John looks up at his friend and Sherlock smiles down at him.

“How?” John mumbles.

Sherlock looks to Moriarty and John understands.

John lies down and pulls himself to Moriarty’s broken body. Sherlock watches but tries not to see. John is white. Not pale, he is white. His skin is cold and clammy and his wounds are loud and angry. There is not enough blood reaching vital parts of him and too much of it has left his body. He is shaking violently and is weak and is fading.

He reaches Moriarty and runs his hand over him until he feels something in his pocket. He pulls out a knife and lifts it to show Sherlock.

“Yes, John.” Sherlock says quietly.

John breathes heavily and makes his way back to Sherlock. John’s agony is visible and it’s a new form of torture to watch him struggle through it just to make it back. Sherlock wants to tell him not to, to just get himself out.

But John knows he doesn’t have the strength for that and if they have any hope of surviving it is dependent on Sherlock being freed.

John makes it. He immediately puts the knife to the binds on Sherlock’s ankles and with so much effort, he frees them. He moves to the back of the chair and puts the knife in the screws holding the headpiece in place.

It comes away and John lets it fall with a crash. He cuts the cord holding Sherlock’s wrists together behind the chair. They come free and Sherlock jumps up ready to grab John and run.

But he looks down and John is already on his back, exhausted from the effort it took to move that much. His last ounce of strength has left him and John slowly closes his eyes as Sherlock reaches down and places his hands on John’s cheeks. John tries to smile, he tries to talk but it’s too late.

All is dark and all is silent.


	15. Calvary.

Lestrade gets the call at three seventeen in the morning.

He is awake anyway, sat in his armchair whilst Molly dozes on the sofa. She hasn’t been able to sleep home alone in days and Lestrade has let her sleep there every night. His wife hasn’t been home in weeks and he’s found that he cares less and less.

His phone rings and Molly’s eyes snap open; she bolts up and watches him.

He says little but it’s enough for her to gage what’s going on.

Within minutes they are in his car and they are speeding to Scotland Yard.

Everyone necessary is woken up and in the building within half an hour. The call is traced and every available unit is speeding south.

From the outside an abandoned warehouse stands in a field. There are holes in the roof and none of the windows have any glass in them. Black, metal rafters hold the structure together and a solitary green armchair stands in the centre of the hall. A broken plastic chair sits opposite it with broken rope on the seat and a bag containing nothing but teabags is by the right leg.

The warehouse is searched and an officer yells when he finds a lever that when pulled opens a door in what appeared to be nothing more than a wall. The door opens up and they are faced with some stairs.

Lestrade descends first, slowly, cautiously. He shines his torch downwards but as he reaches the bottom he finds it isn’t needed. He points his gun forward, holding it steady with both arms. He pads gently across a corridor and then kicks open a door that is closed in front of him.

Stone floors and white walls face him. There are doors to his left and right but he walks forward. He turns a corner and there is a single corridor with no doors to his side, just one in front of him that is ajar.

He walks forward and sees a panel of buttons on the wall. A number of red smears are on the floor, leading into the room beyond the door.

With only a second of hesitation he pushes the door open with his foot and enters the room. The sight that greets him almost rips his heart from his chest. He holds up a hand to stop the officers behind him crashing in as he takes it all in.

A single armchair stands in the middle of the room and there is more blood on it than he cares to measure. A body is lying on the floor by the space that separates one room from another. He can see two rooms from his position. The room to the right is empty other than a ragged blanket and a number of stains. It is rank and dark and it smells and he fears it.

The room to his left has another armchair in it, as well as a bucket and a tray. He sees a shape behind the chair and moves slowly towards it. Gun raised he tiptoes across the floor until he reaches his destination.

“Oh God,” He whispers.

Sherlock is on the floor, his back against the back of the armchair. He has a number of cuts around his forehead and his hands are covered in blood. His legs are stretched out in front of him and in the middle of them lays a figure that Lestrade recognises but doesn’t want to.

John is thin and pale and a mess. He is unconscious and barely breathing.

Sherlock is conscious when Lestrade reaches him, but when they lock eyes it’s as though Sherlock lets everything go and with a slump he passes out.


	16. Bandages

Sherlock wakes up and everything is white.

With blind panic he jumps up and his breathing is too fast and he feels dizzy. He thinks he’s back in that glass room and the light is too bright and it hurts his eyes.

Hands reach his shoulders and he grabs the wrists and yells out the first word that comes to his mind.

“JOHN!”

“It’s okay!” Molly says quickly, “You’re okay!”

Sherlock holds onto her wrists tightly and she lets him even though it’s hurting. She waits for him to steady his breathing and just watches his face.

Everything falls into place for him.

Molly is in front of him, holding his shoulders and she poses no threat. He is not in the glass room, he is in a hospital bed in a private room in St Barts and he is alive.

He blinks three times and lets her go. She cups his cheek with her hand for a few seconds before gently pushing him back down onto the pillow.

He jumps back up.

“John?” He asks. He looks to her and Molly puts her hands in her pockets. She bites her lip.

“He’s...”

Sherlock searches her face and it tells him what he needs to know.

“Take me to him.”

“I...”

“Molly,” He reaches out his hand. “Please.”

She nods and retrieves a wheelchair from the corner of his room. Sherlock eyes the chair suspiciously and swings his legs round from the bed. He makes to stand up but his ankles haven’t recovered, and he nearly falls. Molly catches him and guides him into the chair.

“Too much too soon,” She says. “Your ankles are a mess.”

Sherlock looks down and sees his bare legs from beneath the hospital gown in which he’s been dressed. His ankles are wrapped in bandages; he looks up and sees that his wrists are the same. He raises a hand and feels dressings on his head wounds.

Molly places a blanket over his lap and tucks it in around his back. He looks her in the face as she does this. He’s trying to make eye contact with her, but she can’t quite meet his gaze. He lets her secure the blanket, he hasn’t the strength to argue and knows she is doing it to help him. Good, kind Molly.

“How long have we been here?” Sherlock asks quietly.

Molly goes behind him and pushes him slowly out of his room. They turn left.

“You’ve been out about sixty two hours,” She replies quietly. “They’ve had you on a drip. You were very weak.”

He knows all of this. He knows that she knows he knows this and yet he allows her to speak. Her voice is comforting. It’s coming to him as if from a memory and he can’t quite connect it with reality yet.

“Greg hasn’t said anything of how or where they found you,” She continues.

“Greg?”

“Oh, Detective Lestrade,” She says quickly. “He hasn’t said much. But then I haven’t asked him and I think he thinks I don’t want or need details. Which I don’t.”

“You don’t.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t want to think of either of you in any kind of...” She trails off and Sherlock doesn’t say anything in response.

They enter a lift and when the doors close, Sherlock shuts his eyes. He can’t see four solid metal walls with no way out. Not yet.

He doesn’t think of himself locked away, that isn’t what bothers him about rooms shaped like boxes. It’s thinking of John in the room. It’s thinking of John and thinking of what happened and trying to work out with all his knowledge of human anatomy just how much he’d have suffered. It’s coming close to an answer and wishing it had happened to him instead.

The lift stops, the doors open and Molly pushes him out into a quiet corridor. Sherlock doesn’t like that they’ve entered the Intensive Care Unit.

They turn a corner and a room at the end is their destination. The corridor seems to last for miles, he fears what lays beyond the door.

Lestrade is asleep in a chair outside of the room. His head bobs onto his chest and he is snoring gently. Molly opens the door and looks at Sherlock, biting her lip. She wants to say something, but can’t think of anything worthwhile.

Sherlock wheels himself through the door and she closes it gently behind him.

John lies on his back, arms down to his side. His breathing is slow, but steady and being controlled through a machine. Sherlock approaches slowly. He pulls himself out of the chair and ignores the protests in his ankles as he steadies himself on the bedside cabinet.

Slowly he sits on the side of the bed and looks to his friend.

John is still frightfully pale. Three separate drips have been inserted into his arms, feeding painkillers, sustenance and what Sherlock guesses is sedating him. His hand has a metal cage around it and is slightly elevated, with support reaching all the way down to his elbow, resetting all of his broken bones. There are stitches in his cheek and Sherlock doesn’t look but knows there are bandages and supports covering his torso and his legs.

Sherlock takes the better of John’s hands in his own and holds it gently.


	17. Hospitals

Sherlock is discharged the next morning. His doctor comes and redresses his ankles and his wrists and removes the bandages from his head. He tells him that he is making excellent progress and should be back on his feet by the end of the week.

He doesn’t leave the hospital for another three weeks. He sits in the chair by John’s bed and only leaves to use the bathroom, returning as quickly as nature will allow him to.

Molly brings the paper every morning and Sherlock reads it aloud to the patient. Even though he hates journalism and despises reporters, he reads it in a calm, clear voice because he knows John likes the news.

Mrs Hudson brings his violin on her third visit and sits quietly in the corner whilst he plays John’s favourite songs. She attempts small talk but receives little to no response from him so leaves again. She returns daily, bringing food and tea and random books she finds in the flat. She doesn’t stay in the room longer than an hour and always sits in the hospital refectory for a further hour, not wanting to go back to 221 Baker Street and sit in the silence.

Lestrade comes daily too, but Sherlock isn’t ready to talk about it until John wakes up. He brings case notes and criminal files for Sherlock to read over and give his opinion but Sherlock ignores them. He says the only case he is interested at the moment is that of John’s recovery and he can’t be dabbling in simple, obvious domestic violence cases when John’s life is in the balance.

Mycroft has been every day too. Nobody has seen him, he comes and speaks to the doctor, he looks in through the window and he leaves. He returns and sits in the Diogenes club, staring blankly at the paper in front of him, not taking in any of the words. He is concerned for his brother. He is acting far too naturally for Mycroft to accept. When ones closest companion is lying unconscious in a hospital bed it is natural to stay by their side and remain sullen and withdrawn. But this is Sherlock Holmes whom normal emotions tend to escape, so the fact he is complying with them worries Mycroft deeply.

After eight days, John is strong enough to come off the respiratory aid and begins breathing by himself. Mrs Hudson, Lestrade and Molly all celebrate this news with smiles and attempt to shake Sherlock’s hand or hug him. He sits silently and doesn’t react to their glee. Refusing to adjust his demeanour until something more significant happens.

“Sherlock, this is good news,” Lestrade says.

“It’s a step forward,” Molly replies.

They always visit together now. Molly can’t be in the room alone, she doesn’t know how to be, Sherlock’s continued silence frightens her and she needs Lestrade to stop her filling the room with small talk.

It is day sixteen, just after ten in the morning when John makes a noise. It is only Sherlock in the room; he has just finished a sixteen minute piece on the violin and is placing it back in the case when he hears it.

It is a small, thick noise that comes from the back of John’s throat. Almost as if he’s letting an air bubble pop and swallowing it. Sherlock rushes to his side but that’s all he’s getting today.

He sits back in the chair and watches John closely.

Two days after that John wakes up. Sherlock is reading the paper, Mrs Hudson has just left. Molly is in the morgue and Lestrade is at his desk. Sherlock is reading aloud, a simple story about a man who has completed a marathon despite having an artificial leg. John makes the same noise he made before and Sherlock stops.

He looks up and John’s brow is furrowed. He scrunches his eyes and then opens them slowly. Carefully, so as not to startle him, Sherlock folds the paper and puts it on the side, he sits forward.

John looks at the ceiling and slowly turns his head.

“Sherlock,” He whispers.

“Hello, John.” 


	18. Long roads.

After all his time in the bunker, then the house, then captivity and three weeks in hospital, John Watson is home.

He is in his pyjamas, in his bed, in his room in 221B Baker Street. He is still weak, he is thin and tired and is haunted.

He hasn’t managed a decent night’s sleep since he’s been home and off the drugs that were being administered to him in hospital. He refuses to take them. He has to learn to sleep without them, that’s what he tells everyone.

Not that he has said much. He has barely spoken or eaten or slept. Every time he closes his eyes and the lights go out of his day he is straight back in the cold, glass room. His thoughts are stalked by memories. If a wound twinges he relives the injury. If a door closes he is being locked away again.

It is even a struggle to look at Sherlock. Every time he does he remembers him being trapped in his own room, in that chair. He hears his desperate thoughts again, he relives hearing him beg for John’s own mercy.

Every footstep on the floorboards is Zayn’s boot in his back. Every person’s voice comes from Moriarty’s lips as they press into his own. Every comforting hand that someone tries to lay on him is a punch to the stomach. Every clatter of a teaspoon against a mug is a crowbar to the face.

He sees Zayn everywhere. He sees him when he’s sleeping, invading every dream. He sees him hiding in the corners of his room, waiting behind the door to his wardrobe and the bathroom. He hears him coming up the stairs and sees him pushing open the door. He feels his breath on the back of his neck.

He cries out his name into the darkness in the middle of the night when he’s finally fallen asleep and Zayn appears in every scene.

Sherlock is always at his side within seconds, shaking him awake, but Zayn is always stood over his shoulder. After a week of this happening, Sherlock brings an armchair to the room and stays there whilst John fights his demons.

It is a Monday night, exactly ten days after John has been released from St Barts when John is writhing in his bed and getting tangled in his sheets experience some kind of horror that Sherlock can’t see.

Sherlock tries to shake him, but John won’t wake. He yells his name but John is too far away to hear him. Not knowing what else to do, Sherlock takes off his jacket and climbs into the bed. He wraps his arms around John and holds him tightly.

Eventually John stops writhing and moaning. Sherlock adjusts his position so John’s body curves into his own, and puts his forehead on John’s back. It is sweaty, but his body is cold. John shivers as Sherlock holds him, his hands on John’s hips. Sherlock pulls the duvet up and encases them both. John mutters one last word and Sherlock catches the sound of his own name before falling asleep.

-

“We need to catch him.”

“Who?”

“Zayn.”

John is in the shower and Sherlock is in the living room. Lestrade is in the chair by the desk, sipping a tea.

“How do we do that?” Lestrade asks.

“We have to find him. Once he’s found and dealt with, John will rest.”

“Dealt with?” Lestrade raises a questioning eyebrow and Sherlock doesn’t respond.

John comes out of the bathroom and down the stairs. He doesn’t realise Lestrade is in and walks into the living room before pausing.

With just a towel wrapped around his waist, Lestrade is able to see the extent of John’s suffering and is surprised he doesn’t throw up.

John’s entire midriff is not only too thin for his stocky figure, but the wrong colour. His ribs are swollen and bruised; there are a number of wounds that, although healing, are still red and angry. His hand is still too big. It is no longer in the metal cage and the cast has been removed which is a good thing.

Lestrade wonders why he’s come downstairs practically naked before Sherlock stands up and walks into the kitchen. John sits in his chair and Sherlock returns with an ice cream tub.

Without saying anything, Sherlock wipes all of John’s wounds with antiseptic wipes. John takes a couple of tablets with a glass of water after a rather severe look from Sherlock. He swallows them down, bitterly. He doesn’t want to take painkillers, he’s a soldier, he wants to man up and deal with it but Sherlock won’t let him suffer unnecessarily.

Sherlock puts the wipes away and pulls a pile of fresh bandages from the tub. He wraps John’s hand securely, John sits up slightly and Sherlock wraps a support around his rib cage. He checks the wound on his cheek and puts some salve on all the cuts on his arms and legs.

With more tenderness than Lestrade has ever seen from another person, Sherlock cups the good side of John’s cheek. John grimaces and pulls himself to his feet. He makes his own, difficult way up the stairs. Sherlock looks to the ceiling until they hear John’s bedroom door close and then he looks back to Lestrade.

“He looks...” Lestrade mutters, running an awkward hand through his hair.

“Zayn must be found.” Sherlock says. “Found and dealt with.” 


	19. Needed.

John is dressed. He’s managed to rewrap his own midriff this morning but needs Sherlock to help with the dressing on his hand.

Sherlock is gracious and doesn’t say anything as he applies clean bandages.

Once it is done, John stands up and the two of them look each other in the eyes.

Still nothing. John can’t read a single thing from Sherlock. He’s tried every day since being home, he’s tried with Mrs Hudson, with Lestrade and with Molly and there’s nothing. It’s all dark and quiet in front of him.

He wonders if he should confess his ability to Sherlock and ask his opinion as to why it’s no longer working. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t want Sherlock to know that about him, or know that he’s still this affected.

John has done his best to put on a brave face and show the world he’s okay. But he knows he isn’t fooling Sherlock. He knows Sherlock sits in whilst he sleeps and he’s woken up twice now to find Sherlock’s body wrapped around his own.

Neither of them have mentioned it. They haven’t voiced their opinions on what it means to be sharing a bed.

For John, he doesn’t want to bring it up in case Sherlock stops. He likes the thought of him being there, holding him, protecting him. It does make him feel safer and less alone. It enables him to cope with the dark of the night and warms him if the cold creeps in.

For Sherlock, it started off as necessary. John only slept soundly when he held him. Then it became routine and now he’s found he can’t sleep unless he’s wrapped around John himself. And he’s found that he enjoys sleeping more than he used to.

They are interrupted by a scuffle at the door and they turn to see two police officers holding up boxes. They both recognise them immediately.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE DOING HERE?” Sherlock yells. It makes John jump. He’s never heard Sherlock yell at someone like this before.

“DI Lestrade told us you wanted the boxes,” One of them says.

“Yes, I do! But not here, are you an idiot?!” Sherlock cries, looking to John who is staring at the boxes. He can smell them. He can smell the damp from that bunker and he swallows down hard as bile threatens the back of his throat.

“Please, Mr Holmes, we were just told you wanted them,” The second officer says quickly. “We didn’t think –”

“That much is obvious, take them away, I will look at them at Scotland Yard!”

“No.”

The three men turn to John who has his eyes closed. Slowly he opens them and looks to Sherlock.

“No, I want to help.”

“John,” Sherlock starts.

“I want to help.” He repeats firmly.

Sherlock bites his lip. He takes a deep breath and nods slowly. The officers lay down the boxes and bring up the rest.

Sometime later they are both flicking through one of the notebooks when John looks up.

“How long have you been looking?” He asks.

“Since the first time,” Sherlock responds, not looking up. John knows what he means without having to read him.

“Nothing?”

“We’ve sent people to the home, to the house, to his parents old address, his therapists and his foster homes, he hasn’t made contact with anyone,” Sherlock says quietly.

“We?”

“Lestrade and I,”

“Lestrade’s gone to these places?” John asks.

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t you gone? Lestrade might have missed something, you usually think him so... incapable.” John says and he puts down the notebook.

Sherlock closes his own and places it on the coffee table. He leans forward and studies John for a moment.

“Tea?” He asks suddenly. Without waiting for a response he stands and enters the kitchen.

John twists his lip in his fingers and within minutes Sherlock is back, placing a mug on the side of John and sitting down with his own.

“Sherlock?” John says and Sherlock looks to him. “Have you even left the flat since we got back?”

“I haven’t needed to.” Sherlock replies. His eyes flicker down, no longer meeting John’s.

“Sherlock...”

“I haven’t wanted to leave you alone,” Sherlock says quickly. “You’re struggling.”

“I could cope for a couple of hours if you wanted to go, if you needed to go to a location I mean,” John says. “Molly could come over if you’re that worried about me being alone, or Mrs Hudson, she’s downstairs,”

“It’s... I mean, no, I don’t mind, I’d rather stay.”

“Sherlock, I’ll be alright, you can’t stay in this flat forever,”

“I’ll leave when you’re ready.” He says.

“When I’m ready?” John raises an eyebrow.

“When I’m ready.” Sherlock says and a slight flush of pink strikes his cheeks. “I mean, when I’m ready, you weren’t the only one locked up you know.”

John opens his mouth but can’t think of anything to say, so closes it again. That last comment strikes him.

“No, dammit,” Sherlock stands up. “No, I didn’t mean that, of course you were worse, you were there for longer than me and nothing physical happened to me, I just... I mean,”

“Sherlock, it’s okay.” John says in a small voice.

“No, it’s not damn well okay!” Sherlock says, raising his voice. “I can’t do it John, I can’t rest easy knowing he’s still out there, when he left the room he pointed at me and he pointed at you and there was too much to read from that gesture and I can’t let it go.”

“You’ll find him,” John says confidently. “You will, once you get out of the flat, I’ll be alright, you can go.”

“No, I can’t.”

“You can, I’ll be okay, I’ll call Molly. Hell, call Mycroft if it’ll get you to leave,” John says, trying to lighten the mood.

“I can’t do that. I can’t be away from the flat. I can’t be away from you. Not again.”

John turns and sees that Sherlock is stood with a hand pressed against the wall and the other hand covering his eyes. He is distressed and worried and genuine. It hits John that Sherlock means what he says, it’s not the flat he can’t leave, it’s John.

“Then I’ll come with you,” John says and Sherlock turns.

“Absolutely not.”

“It’ll eat you alive if you don’t solve this last piece of the puzzle.” John says gently.

Sherlock walks over to him slowly and stops when he is stood next to the chair that John occupies. He takes a deep breath and nods. John holds out his hand and Sherlock takes it, pulling him to his feet. John looks up and his eyes lock onto Sherlock’s and he realises that he needs him too. That if Sherlock had left the flat, it would have been extremely detrimental.

 


	20. Stake out.

An hour and a half later and Sherlock and John are in a dark corner in the Vauxhall Arches.

Sherlock learns from his homeless network that a man who has never been seen before appeared there three days ago. A man who has dark hair and dresses all in grey. His source says the man is silent, that he doesn’t speak, that he carries a crowbar and has stains covering his grey clothes.

Sherlock wanted them to crouch down in a corner and wait where they could see the entirety of the largest opening, but it soon became apparent that John would not be able to crouch for that long.

So they are stood closely in a corner, hidden in the shadows.

It’s cold and dark and there is an incessant drip from a broken pipe just a few feet away. Every time John closes his eyes to blink he feels sick. He is jumpy and scared of the wind. Sherlock can sense his fear but doesn’t raise it as an issue.

Something crashes an archway over and John jumps out of his skin. His hand reaches his heart and clutches at his jacket. Sherlock looks to him and wordlessly tells him they can go.

“I’m fine.” John whispers.

He lowers his hand and it grazes Sherlock’s as it comes to rest by his side. An electricity shoots through the both of them, it is new and stirs previously dormant feelings in each of their bodies.

Sherlock swallows down whatever he was about to say and John finds himself watching the movement of his Adam’s apple with a new found interest. John swallows down his own thoughts and tries to shake himself out of it.

“John...” Sherlock says quietly. A strip of light is illuminating John’s face from the left hand side, it makes his eyes glow with an orange burning. The wound on his face isn’t as angry anymore, it’s healing and Sherlock finds it fascinating all of a sudden, he is intrigued by John’s body and how his skin is finding its way to reconnect after being torn apart.

Almost subconsciously he begins raising his hand to cup the cheek, he wants to put John’s skin in his own. John leans, ever so slightly, forward ready to take the hand and feel his touch. He wets his lips with a gentle brush of his tongue all the while their eyes are locked.

Both of them feel their hearts race, their pulses have quickened. John’s breath has become shallow and almost husky. Sherlock’s hand finds John’s cheek and his fingers find the hair at the back of his head, they begin entangling in it, twirling it around. It has gotten much longer than John usually lets it, but Sherlock enjoys letting it fall over his hands.

It is a brand new sensation. John has had people play with his hair before, and even enjoy it. But never from someone who makes him feel so much with just the power of his glare. Sherlock’s eyes penetrate his own and for the first time John is glad he can’t read him anymore, it seems as if Sherlock is looking into his very soul and John is not sure he wants to know what he’ll find there. His fingers at the back of his neck are sending shivers down John’s spine.

Sherlock is watching John closely. He has always failed to see the appeal of such trivial things. What can honestly come of playing with someone’s hair? But seeing the glint in the eyes of someone he cares so fiercely for, seeing how much John likes this and knowing he is the cause of such pleasure is giving Sherlock a new ride on a previously untouched power trip. He wants John to be happy, it’s all he’s wanted for a long time, and now he’s found he can aid that happiness.

Not only that, but there is a stirring in the pit of Sherlock’s stomach that says John’s happiness is not the only thing to benefit from such contact.

The crash is heard again and it’s much closer. Footsteps are approaching. They are making splashes in the pools of water leading to this very archway.

Sherlock and John break apart and both hands find a weapon. John is right handed and his grip is less than secure around his gun. But he still trusts a weaker right hand than his left. He holds it as tightly as he can and though his still healing bones twinge, he doesn’t let his grip slack. Sherlock has his own gun, and it is pointing firmly at the growing shadow as whoever approaches, does so lazily.

Lestrade is waiting a street over with two cars. Those are the instructions. Wait until there is word from Sherlock to come and pick Zayn up. Lestrade protested, especially after Sherlock’s words of him being “dealt with”. He tried to give Sherlock a warning, that even in the circumstances he can’t just go off and kill somebody.

Sherlock promptly ignored him.

A figure walks into the middle of the opening and stops. He turns and looks around. Sherlock takes three confident strides and points his gun directly at the mans head.

“Zayn Moriarty,” He says. “We meet again.”

 

 

 


	21. You're not afraid to die; I can see it in your eyes.

Zayn turns to look at them both. The hand holding the crowbar tightens considerably. John looks down and feels his head haze over.

Zayn’s hand is still covered in blood. It’s dark and crusty and has begun falling away after all this time, but it is still there. The crowbar still holds evidence of the attack and John knows it’s his own blood mixed with Moriarty’s. He wonders if there’s anyone else present on it.

He looks at Sherlock because he can’t keep looking at Zayn’s hand. And that’s all he can see when he looks at him. Sherlock is slightly ahead of him and John gladly falls in behind. The back of Sherlock’s head is a much more comforting sight than his own blood still on a man’s hand, weeks after it was put there.

Whilst studying every curl on his friend’s scalp, John thinks about Zayn. He wonders what a man must have been through to not even think to find somewhere to wash. It’s been such a long time since they were in those rooms. Has Zayn thought about it? Has he thought about his brother? What has he been doing?

He’s still not able to see anything on Sherlock, and Zayn was always a blank page to him. So it doesn’t affect the situation that John’s gift appears to have vacated him. John takes a deep breath and looks back to Zayn.

His eyes remain empty and cold, they stare forward as they did when he sat in that chair. But John knows firsthand how quickly he can lose that collected facade if a trigger word is mentioned. And seeing as they are both only aware of one, he remains slightly hidden in Sherlock’s shadow.

“Still silent?” Sherlock says. “It’s been an awfully long time, have you not thought to wash?”

Zayn says nothing. He just stares forward.

“You were thirteen when you stopped speaking,” Sherlock says. It’s not a question. This is Sherlock and he retains information, he drinks it up and stores it in every corner of his mind. “What could have happened?”

Sherlock takes a small, confident step forward. John follows, only to close the gap. He doesn’t want to be closer to Zayn, but he’d rather that than further away from Sherlock.

“Big brother said it was something so bad, something that caused you to shut your mouth and keep it closed,” Sherlock says. He takes another step.

“Sherlock...” John whispers quietly.

“There’s plenty of options, it’s textbook psychology really,” Sherlock continues. “Childhood trauma and it’s turned you into this monster.”

Zayn raises the crowbar and Sherlock tightens his grip on his gun. John tries to do the same but his concentration is stuck on Zayn’s right hand and that thing being held there. His hand twinges. He feels sick.

“I don’t take very kindly to people harming things that are under my protection. You made me feel useless, powerless.” Sherlock says.

He takes another step forward and John grabs the back of his coat, he can’t find his voice well enough to ask him to stop and even if he could he doesn’t want to speak in front of Zayn. He’s sure his voice will break if he does and he doesn’t want Zayn to have the satisfaction.

John isn’t sure that satisfaction is an emotion Zayn can feel. He isn’t sure he can feel anything. But he’s damned if he’ll be the one who helps him find out. Those cold eyes are still staring at him. At him and not at Sherlock and it’s making his legs shake. He’s seen those eyes too many times, peering into his soul in the darkness and unnerving his very heart.

His hand grips Sherlock’s coat and he holds it firmly. Sherlock makes a motion with his free hand but John misses it. He has looked Zayn in the eye and now his gaze is stuck.

“Do you have _nothing_ to say?” Sherlock snarls. His voice is full of venom and disgust. Sherlock is looking at Zayn and fails to see a man. He sees nothing but a creature void of all emotion and remorse.

Sherlock has felt more than he has ever felt in the past month, and it’s all centred around John. He feels his grip on the back of his coat and wants to tell him that he’s here, that it’s okay. He knows that if Zayn had attacked someone else and this was simply them on a case, John would quite possibly feel sympathetic towards him. He’d talk about his childhood and how it’s not his fault and that whatever hideous crime his Father committed against him is to blame.

But it didn’t happen to anyone else. It happened to them. It happened to him. And all Sherlock knows is that John is stuck in this paralysing fear that it will happen again. Sherlock looks to Zayn and what he feels is anger.

“What did Daddy do?” Sherlock asks.

It is barely more than a whisper, but it is so powerful that it reverberates around the damp walls. Those four words bounce and splash through the puddles, they echo in the dark, John feels them work their way down his spine and he realises fully, for the first time, just how intimidating Sherlock can really be.

As if in slow motion, Zayn’s eyes leave John’s and they rise to Sherlock’s. They lock on. His right arm comes up and reaches behind, before swinging back round. John stands stock still. He can’t run and there’s nowhere to hide. So being a soldier he stands firm, ready to take a hit he can’t avoid.

But Sherlock gets there first. His own arm collides with Zayn’s and it is with such a force that his hand slackens and the crowbar falls to the floor. It hits with such impact that both Sherlock and John are thrown back to the glass rooms with the clanging. Sherlock recovers quickly, barely flinching, but John is forced to take two deep breaths and let them out in a slow release.

Zayn looks to the floor and back to Sherlock slowly. He looks at the gun in Sherlock’s hand and his face shows nothing. If the man is thirty, he has had seventeen years of practising this silence. Not only with words, but with looks and making sure his features betray nothing.

Time catches up with what John is watching as Zayn raises his fist and attempts to strike Sherlock anywhere he can. He aims for his cheeks, his nose, his arms, his chest. Anywhere and everywhere Zayn strikes out.

But Sherlock is always that one step ahead. He always blocks it and remains untouched. This is why Moriarty kept him tied up whilst John was beaten. He’s a skilled fighter. John takes courage from him and steps to the side.

Zayn notices and tries towards him instead. Sherlock hasn’t realised that John has moved and is momentarily distracted, Zayn seizes the opportunity and punches him in the stomach. Sherlock is bent over and Zayn takes out his legs with a kick of his own. Sherlock is down. His face lies in a puddle. His hair begins drinking the water.

Zayn lurches toward John, his fists flailing. John does his best to avoid being hit, but he’s not as quick as Sherlock. A fist finds his arm, the wound on his cheek is hit. John doesn’t stand dormant, he returns the favour, he hits back and feels Zayn’s nose break under his fingers.

That doesn’t stop him though, it seems he is able to ignore such a feeling.

“Zayn!” Sherlock warns. John sees that Sherlock has rolled onto his back and is pointing his gun at the two of them.

It’s hard to focus though, and everyone is aware that with them moving so much there’s no way to be certain the bullet would hit Zayn and not John.

Sherlock wriggles to the wall and pulls himself up, it takes some time though, the punch that hit him was hard and straight. The kick that took out his legs woke up wounds on his ankles and reminded his brain of the damage he did to his ligaments whilst pulling against those binds.

John sees him struggling. He knows it’s up to him now. He has to do this. He can do this.

Zayn is relentless. He hits out continuously, not letting John rest for even a second. But John is a soldier. He may not be as quick as Sherlock but he is trained in combat and he may have lost his ability to read people’s minds but he can read body language. He can learn a person’s technique.

Zayn just hits out at what is available. If there’s an opening on the opponent’s body, he’ll hit it. So John decides to try and trick him.

John raises his arm and it works, Zayn goes in for his stomach, he takes the hit so that as Zayn thinks it’s safe to pull away, John brings down his arm and with all the effort he can muster in his fragile hand, strikes Zayn in the head with the butt of his gun.

He sways for just a moment before falling to the floor with a dull thud.


	22. The sky's an inky black.

“We should call Lestrade.” John says finally.

“Not yet.” Sherlock replies.

Sherlock stands confidently now. He has recovered himself. They have pushed Zayn up against the wall, where he sits slumped. His head is lolling on his chest. They both know they have minutes until he wakes up again.

“Why not?” John asks.

“I’m not done talking to him.”

“He’s not going to give you anything, he doesn’t speak.” John says. “Let’s just get him locked up.”

“Don’t you want him to suffer for what he did to you?” Sherlock asks incredulously. “That’s normally what people want, isn’t it? Revenge?”

“Nothing is normal about this,” John says quietly.

Sherlock turns to him and studies him closely.

“You just want to let him go?” Sherlock asks.

“No, just let Lestrade take him away. Lock him back up. Somewhere he can’t get out this time.”

“He hurt you,” Sherlock says.

“Moriarty hurt me,” John replies. “It was Moriarty who locked us up and set him on us.”

Sherlock doesn’t say anything. He looks away, back to Zayn.

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” John says. And there it is, Sherlock thinks, _sympathy._

“He knows more than you think.” Sherlock says.

“This... all of this is Moriarty’s doing and he’s dead. Please Sherlock, I don’t want to look at him anymore.”

“Then go outside.” Sherlock replies.

John opens his mouth to reply, but can’t think of what to say. He closes it again. He looks to Sherlock but Sherlock’s gaze remains focused on the sleeping figure on the floor. John sighs and turns to walk away.

It takes him a while, he’s unsteady on his feet. The past few hours have shaken him. He reaches the end of the opening and can hear Sherlock speaking. He can’t make out the words but knows his voice. As he turns left out of the archway, he hears a gunshot.

John hesitates. He decides and continues walking. As he reaches the steps that lead out of the arches he hears one more gunshot and then an echoing silence.

Fresh air hits him and the evening opens out before him. The sky is turning into an inky black and it smells clear, it smells like London, it smells like home.

“John?” He turns as Lestrade reaches him. He lays a hand on John’s shoulder and John just looks at him.

Lestrade doesn’t wait for further information before beckoning over to his officers and leading them down into the arches.

John rests against one of the police cars and waits. A part of him wants to climb in and close his eyes until he is driven home. But curiosity gets the better of him and he holds out.

Soon enough, the officers come up into the air and reassemble around their cars. Two officers are carrying the limp figure that is Zayn Moriarty.

He is still breathing; his chest rises and falls in slow succession. Through his dirty, grey clothes John can see where he was hit. Red, angry, vengeful red is spilling out from just below his knee on his right leg, and from the left of his chest. John knows that a couple of inches lower and it would have been his heart. He knows that Sherlock knows this too.

Lestrade and Sherlock are the last to exit.

-

They travel back in silence.

Lestrade drives them in his car and Sherlock and John both sit in the back, making him feel like a taxi driver.

As he pulls up on Baker Street, Mrs Hudson is in the doorway and he turns to look at them before they climb out.

“Do you need a hospital?” He asks John.

“No, thanks.”

“I’ll dress it when we get in,” Sherlock says.

Lestrade nods. “We will need to talk about all of this, at some point.”

“At some point,” Sherlock says.

“You too John, when you’re ready.”

“I’ll let you know,” John says quietly.

“Of course, just you know, there’s press and things. I’ll hold down the media as much as I can but we’ll need statements. So we can prosecute.”

“He’ll just end up in a home again, won’t he?” John asks.

“More than likely. But a much more secure location than January Home.” Lestrade says.

“Have you spoken to them?” John inquires.

“Yes, Moriarty just walked in alone and walked out with him. It’s all on CCTV. They’re under investigation as we speak, we can’t have people just taking people out of institutions.”

“No,” Sherlock says. “We can’t.”

“Well, I’ll be in touch.” Lestrade says.

“Thanks Greg.” John replies.

Sherlock nods his appreciation. Lestrade grimaces. The two of them exit the car and he drives away with a final raise of his hand to them.

“Oh boys!” Mrs Hudson says as they approach her. “Is everything sorted?”

“Everything’s fine,” Sherlock tells her.

“You’ll be alright?” She looks at John.

“I’ll manage.” He says and gives her a small smile.

“Shall I make you some tea?”

“That’d be lovely,” John says and she follows them up the stairs.

“Just this once though, I’m not your housekeeper.”

Mrs Hudson makes them a tea tray and places it on the table between their armchairs. She’s made herself one, but can’t stand the silence so takes it downstairs.

Sherlock fetches the kit and cleans John’s cheek. He puts a dressing on it. He is tender and his eyes are full of caring concern. But neither of them say anything.

John looks at a point just past Sherlock’s head; he blinks slowly, his head full of thoughts about the day. Sherlock concentrates on what he’s doing, occasionally letting his eyes flit to John’s, to try and catch some inclination as to how he’s feeling.

When Sherlock is finished he stands and takes the box back to the kitchen. He puts it back on the shelf and hovers in the doorway.

John stands up and makes his way to the stairs.

“John?” Sherlock tries.

“Goodnight Sherlock,” John says.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” John replies, not looking at him. “I don’t know how I feel.”


	23. Tracing outlines.

John wakes up in the middle of the night.

His sheets are damp from a cold sweat and are tangled around his legs where he’s been writhing through whatever dream was taunting him.

He props himself up on his elbows and looks around.

Sherlock isn’t there. He isn’t in bed with him, he isn’t in the armchair, and he isn’t stood in the doorway. John assumes he wasn’t making enough noise to cause Sherlock concern, but is still slightly thrown by waking up alone.

He looks at the clock on his bedside table and sees that it is just after three. He sighs and pulls himself out of bed and pads downstairs.

Sherlock is in his armchair, legs pulled up to his chest, his chin resting on his knee.

He looks up as John enters and raises an enquiring eyebrow. John shrugs and goes to get himself some water. He returns and sits in his own chair, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

“You weren’t...” John trails off, not managing to say ‘in my bed.’

“I didn’t know if you’d want me to be.” Sherlock says, knowing what he means.

“I don’t know,” John says.

“Do you still need me to be?”

“I woke up from a nightmare didn’t I?”

“Yes, but you weren’t screaming, which is an improvement.” Sherlock tells him.

“Just because you shot the man who has been haunting my dreams doesn’t mean they’ve gone away.”

“So it is bothering you.” Sherlock says and lowers his legs.

“What?”

“That I shot him.”

“Of course it’s bothering me Sherlock, you shot a defenceless man.” John snaps.

“You shot someone who was trying to hurt me once,” Sherlock retorts.

“That’s different!”

“Yes, Zayn had already hurt you.” Sherlock states and John is unable to think of a reply. He sips his water.

After a while Sherlock mutters, “We all have reasons for the things we do.”

“He was on the floor, unconscious.” John says. “You should have just let Lestrade take him.”

“So he could go and sit in a room and think about what he’s done?” Sherlock snaps. “The man is an empty tin chest. He wouldn’t have thought on the pain he inflicted on you for one moment, not even one heartbeat.”

“Isn’t that punishment enough?” John cries. “Being trapped in nothingness? He has no thoughts, no dreams, no hopes, no worries,”

“And you have too many!”

“And I’m glad!” John yells suddenly, making them both jump.

“You’re glad? You’re glad you worry too much and over think things?” Sherlock asks quietly.

John sighs and stands up, determined to go back to bed but Sherlock stands too.

“I won’t ever understand your simple mind,” He says.

“Just because my mind isn’t a bloody calculator or an encyclopaedia does not make it simple,” John says irritably. “I might worry too much and think too much about things that seem trivial to you, like love and pity, but those are the things that are really important. And all you ever do is belittle them.”

“Is this about me shooting Zayn or me belittling you?” Sherlock asks. “Because you seem to have changed the subject quite rapidly.”

“It’s about you opening your closed mind for one second and seeing that you shooting that guy doesn’t make me feel any better!”

“It made me feel better!” Sherlock bites. “How about how I feel John?”

“You don’t feel Sherlock, it’s all just an ear for an ear for you, it’s logical to get revenge and that’s what you did.”

John turns to go and Sherlock lets him. He listens as John hobbles up the stairs and crosses to his room. He crosses the room in three quick strides and takes the stairs two at a time until he is in John’s doorway.

“I felt more in that room than I have ever experienced and I didn’t like it at all,” Sherlock says and John stands up from his bed. “I... I care about you John and he was hurting you.”

John takes a step forward. He can see Sherlock is struggling with this admission.

“I know you think little of me John, I know I may appear to be a machine to you, that everything I do, I do because it is the logical thing to do, but let me tell you that shooting that man in the leg and the chest felt brilliant. And you may think badly of me for that, but I knew he’d return to some room and forget all about you and what he did. At least now he can feel the pain from those bullets and remember that he deserved them.”

“You could have killed him,”

“But I didn’t.” Sherlock says and looks John in the eyes. “I don’t kill people unnecessarily, I did what needed to be done, I was angry. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sorry, Sherlock.” John sighs. “I just... I wanted to get out and forget about him.”

“He would have remembered us as something he needed to finish, now he’ll associate us with pain and won’t come searching for you.”

“He’ll associate you with pain,” John says. “Not me.”

“He’ll know,” Sherlock says confidently. “I did it for you John, because of you, I told him so.”

“You did?”

“When you walked away,” Sherlock says.

“So you do care,” John says and takes another step forward. Another inch and their noses could be touching.

“Care...”

“You do have something in that hollow tin chest of yours, something that beats for the people you care about, people you might even love. It’s not just a disadvantage after all,” He says quietly.

“Oh but it is a disadvantage, it makes ones perceptions all ... hazy,” Sherlock says and takes a gulp. John shifts his eyes down to Sherlock’s throat as he swallows down, John’s hand twitches and a shiver erupts at the base of his spine.

“That’s what makes you human,” John whispers. “caring, and being passionate about something that you act entirely on impulse and –”

Sherlock cuts him off with a kiss.

It is firm, yet soft, confident and lingering. There is stubble surrounding Sherlock’s chin where he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, a hand finds the back of John’s head and pulls him in closer. John wraps his own arms around Sherlock’s waist and Sherlock’s other hand finds John’s lower back.

They stand entwined for some time, letting their tongues explore one another’s mouths. Eventually Sherlock pulls away and John nips his lower lip before letting go. Sherlock plants one final peck on John’s cheek before leading him over to the bed.

Sherlock removes his shirt and trousers and climbs in wearing only his boxer shorts. John keeps his t-shirt on and slides in on the other side. Sherlock pulls him in so his body is curved around John’s and begins tracing lines all over John’s back.

John falls into a comfortable sleep with the sensation of Sherlock’s fingers under his shirt, sending the odd shiver over his skin. 


	24. Trains.

John feels himself being shaken awake the next morning and sits up to find a suitcase open at the bottom of his bed and Sherlock moving back to his wardrobe.

“What are you doing?” John asks sleepily.

“Packing!” Sherlock says happily, which unnerves John slightly.

“Packing? My things?”

“Yes!”

“Are you kicking me out?” John asks and Sherlock actually laughs.

“No, no, we have a case, we need to leave rather soon actually.” Sherlock says.

“Are you high?” John asks. “Drunk? Am I dreaming?”

“No, no and no. Get up and pack some things, I have no idea what you’ll want to bring other than a hundred cable knit sweaters.” Sherlock laughs at his own joke and leaves the room.

“What is happening?” John mutters to himself.

He pinches his own arm, which hurts, and he knows he’s not dreaming.

He sighs, and pulls back his duvet.

Within half an hour, he is washed, dressed, packed and hauling his case downstairs.

Sherlock’s own weekend bag is propped by the door and Mrs Hudson is there to wish them a safe trip.

“Let me know when I can expect you home boys,” She says.

“We’ll send you a postcard!” Sherlock says.

“Why is he so happy?” John asks.

“Oh... oh a case, I suppose,” She shrugs, rather unconvincingly, “He likes them, doesn’t he?”

John eyes her suspiciously. She knows something, he knows she does.

“Well, have a nice time!” She smiles and bats Sherlock away as he kisses her on the cheek.

“Come along John!” He says.

John rolls his eyes. He kisses Mrs Hudson in the same place Sherlock did and then heaves his case up into his arms and follows Sherlock down to the street.

The two of them climb into a taxi and Sherlock tells the driver to take them to King’s Cross station.

John waits with the bags whilst Sherlock goes off to print their tickets. He returns with a coffee for each of them and a pan au chocolat for John. He munches it slowly whilst trying to figure out which of the soon departing trains is theirs.

Without warning, Sherlock picks up his own bag and begins walking away. John hurries after him and they walk through the crowds to their platform. Sherlock holds open the door and John climbs on and chooses a seat by the window at a table. Sherlock nods his approval and sits opposite him after storing their bags in the overhead hold.

The train rumbles to life as the seats around them fill up with people. They are left to their own table though and Sherlock takes off his coat and puts it on the seat next to him. John takes off his own jacket but keeps it on his lap. He watches Sherlock who watches everyone else.

Neither of them has yet mentioned the previous night. Not their argument or what followed. John absentmindedly runs his finger over his mouth, as if remembering the touch of Sherlock’s lips on his own. Sherlock looks to him and he quickly clears his throat.

“Does Lestrade know we’re going away?” He asks. “I thought he wanted statements?”

“He said they can wait.” Sherlock replies. John wonders if that was actually Lestrade’s words or if Sherlock put them in his mouth.

John looks out of the window and tries to read the departures sign that hangs over the platform. He is ever so slightly at the wrong angle and can only make out the departure time which is 11.00.

The doors close and a whistle blows. The train begins to slowly pull out of the station and Sherlock sits back in his seat and seems to relax a little.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard the eleven hundred hour cross country service to Edinburgh Waverly. This service will call at Birmingham New Street, Nottingham, Leeds, Durham, Newcastle and is due to arrive in Edinburgh Waverly at quarter past four this afternoon. The on board shop is open for you to enjoy hot and cold beverages, light meals and snacks as well as a wide range of magazines and confectionary. We wish you a pleasant journey and thank you for travelling with us today.”

John looks back at Sherlock who is watching the world pass out of the window.

“There isn’t a case, is there?” John asks. Sherlock turns his head slowly.

“Finish your coffee John,” He says.

John sighs, but does as he’s told.

During their five hour journey, Sherlock drinks seven cups of tea from the shop and eats a packet of Munchies. John drinks twelve cups of tea and eats two sandwiches, three bags of crisps and several bars of chocolate. He reads five different newspapers and let’s Sherlock tell him all the answers to the crosswords.

They talk lightly and pleasantly and Sherlock laughs more than John has ever see him do so. John nearly asks why they’re headed to Scotland again and again but stops himself, not wanting to ruin things. Sherlock is smiling and talking and is the happiest John has known him. Despite everything that has happened in the last month. John wonders if it was last night. If kissing Sherlock makes him this way. If all this time he just needed a damn good snog.

The train pulls in and they let the majority of the crowd pile off before tidying their table and retrieving their bags. They walk together and Sherlock lets John go through the ticket barrier first. He’s right behind him and places a gentle hand on John’s lower back as they walk out of the station and climb into a taxi. Sherlock gives the name of what John guesses is a hotel and they pull away.

Edinburgh is a lively city, but compared to London is almost peaceful. The buildings are old and stained with years of wear, but John appreciates their aesthetic beauty, and Sherlock appreciates John’s appreciation.

They drive for about twenty minutes before arriving at their accommodation. They are on the edge of the city in a small cul de sac, where three bungalows sit next to each other. Sherlock pays the driver and they climb out of the taxi. A woman comes out of the house to the right of the three and gives a little wave.

“Mr Holmes?” She asks in a broad Scottish accent.

“Indeed, you’ll be Mrs Lenley?”

“Aye, I will be,” She smiles. “Follow me.”

She leads them to the middle bungalow, pushes open the little wooden gate that stands in the middle of the low wall that runs around the front garden. A mosaic path leads to the front door, which is a pale blue against the white washed walls of the house. She puts in a key and they follow her inside.

It is fairly big, yet homely. The entrance hall has a wooden floor and a low ceiling, with dark brown wooden beams along it. They put their bags on the floor and hang their jackets on the coat stand that stands to their left. Mrs Lenley, a plump, greying woman, shows them a living room with a large, squishy corner sofa, two matching armchairs, a fireplace and a large media center. She shows them a long kitchen with slate surfaces and a scrubbed wooden table by the window. It leads to a conservatory that has three large armchairs in it, as well as a low coffee table which all stands on a deep blue rug. She shows them a study, with a desk and a computer and five bookshelves full of aged titles.

“Through there’s the bedroom,” She says, pointing to a door. “And the en suite is on the other side, or there’s a bathroom through that door there,” She says pointing to a different one. “Here’s your keys,” She hands a bunch to Sherlock. “No rules really, except keep it clean and don’t be playing loud music after nine.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock smiles.

“No problem, quickest route to town is to take the number twelve bus, which stops at the end of the road every fifteen minutes, else there’s a taxi, else you can walk. If you feel like going for a walk along the cliffs, which is very nice, there’s a coach that leaves every morning at half nine from the train station, and if you have any questions I’m next door or my number is by the phone,” She says.

She nods and smiles again before moving towards the door.

“Try not to set the place on fire and we’ll be alright.” She winks and pulls the door closed behind her.

Sherlock looks to John as if awaiting his opinion.

“Just the one bedroom?” He asks.

“Oh, yes, well,” Sherlock begins.

John giggles and Sherlock realises he’s joking. He smiles broadly and catches John off guard by sweeping him up in another kiss.


	25. Your happiness matters too, Sherlock.

For the first day, they don’t venture far from the bungalow.

John wakes up and runs his hand over the empty space where Sherlock lay. He isn’t sure if he slept or not, but the sheets are still warm which says he hasn’t been gone long.

He finds him in the study, leafing through some of the ancient volumes on the shelves. He turns as John opens the door and throws him a smile.

John makes them a light breakfast of Eggs Benedict and coffee and they eat it in the conservatory, looking out at the garden. John chooses not to comment on Sherlock actually eating a proper meal for once, and just enjoys the normality of it all.

Sherlock fetches a couple of the books, hands one he thinks John will like over and they sit reading quietly for a few hours in the squishy armchairs. A gentle breeze wafts through the open doors whilst the sun shines pleasantly on their skin.

Sherlock lets his hand fall off of the arm of the chair whilst he holds his book with the other. John looks down and without hesitating puts his own hand down and laces it loosely through. Sherlock starts and looks over at the contact, and then up at John’s face. He doesn’t react, letting his eyes wander from side to side across the page, even if he’s not taking in the words. He’s a little nervous, they’ve kissed, sure, but is this too much?

He goes back to his book, leaving his hand where it is, feeling the small smile creep across his lips and not having any control over it. Sherlock is comfortable like this.

He doesn’t eat lunch; instead he wanders the perimeter of the garden whilst John eats a sandwich. John watches him through the kitchen window. Sherlock walks slowly, his hands clasped behind his back and his head tilted slightly upwards, taking in the air, so fresh and clear compared to London.

They have dinner at the kitchen table. Sherlock reads whilst John cooks. John doesn’t mind, he likes being the chef. It’s how it was before and he likes that some things haven’t changed. It brings a sense of routine into the ever changing chaos that has been his life lately.

-

On their second day in Scotland, they wake early and decide to take the bus to the cliffs for a day walking. It is John’s quiet suggestion and he’s pleasantly surprised when Sherlock agrees, eagerly so.

The sight of Sherlock Holmes waiting at a bus stop, next to a huddle of little old ladies is something John cannot deal with so early in the morning. He has to put his fist to his mouth to stop himself from laughing out loud. Sherlock eyes his muffled giggles with only the smallest hint of annoyance.

They take seats next to each other at the back of the coach that leaves right on time from the train station. The old ladies are not on their bus and it fills up around them with other tourists, noticeable due to the trademark backpacks and oversized cameras around their necks.

Though there is one couple who choose to sit in front of them who don’t have bags or cameras or maps or anything touristy whatsoever. They are young, late teens at most, and he places an arm around her shoulders, where she curves into him happily.

“I like this tradition,” She says softly.

The boy kisses the top of her head and they watch the world go by out of the window. Sherlock and John share a look, each making their own deductions about the couple and whether it is the bus journey or the walk or the arm around her shoulder that is the tradition. Sherlock smiles and places a gentle hand on John’s leg, where nobody else can see but that’s not important. John’s cheeks pink slightly and he leans into him a little.

The journey lasts just over an hour and they arrive at Dunbar harbour just after half past ten. It’s quiet and still and beautiful. They decide to let the other passengers get a head start and stop for a tea before they embark on their own walk.

It begins with a steep climb past a leisure centre and then down some steps where they enter into a park and begin their walk along the coast. It is an incredibly clear day and they amble slowly along to take in the incredible views. They can see across the Firth of Forth, into the estuary and are granted with visions of the site of Dunbar Castle.

John is stood looking at the castle site and feeling the gentle breeze around his cheeks when he feels an arm slide around his middle. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Because the weather is so pleasant, they’ve both removed their jackets and John wears just a navy blue t-shirt with his jeans, whilst Sherlock walks in a white shirt and jeans, and they’ve both donned boots for the occasion.

Sherlock feels John rest his head onto his shoulder and he feels that smile creep over his mouth again. Something that only John seems to be able to entice out of him. He wonders what John is thinking and if it would ruin the moment to ask when he speaks.

“We went to a castle,” He says.

“You did?”

“Kind of, Moriarty... it was all ruins, in Faro,”

“Portugal?” Sherlock asks, though it isn’t really a question.

“Yes. He shot a man.”

“Himself?”

“Well, no,” John sighs. “Someone else did it, I referred to him as the passenger. That’s all he was, wherever we went, he was there, ready to stop me from...”

“Escaping?”

“That was never an option, but from hurting anyone I suppose.”

“Is is a mistake? This? Bringing you here?” Sherlock asks suddenly.

“No, Sherlock, of course not,” John turns and looks up at him. “It’s beautiful here.”

“Aesthetically, yes, I suppose it is traditionally beautiful.”

“What is traditionally beautiful?” John asks, but Sherlock misses the sarcasm in his question.

“You know, wide, open landscapes, greenery, old buildings,” Sherlock lists, pointing these things out. “That’s what people who go walking go to see, isn’t it?”

“What did you go walking to see?”

“You.” Sherlock replies, sharp as a tack. It throws John slightly, he wasn’t expecting that.

“Me?”

“I just want you to be happy, that’s all that matters now,” He says.

“Your happiness matters too, Sherlock.”

“To you,” Sherlock sighs.

“You are strange,” John comments.

He is smiling when he says it, but Sherlock’s face falls and he lets his arm fall with it. He takes a step back and turns to the view.

“Sherlock?” John asks.

“You really think me strange?”

“Well... yes.” John says. “But that’s not a bad thing, it’s who you are... isn’t it? Makes you different.”

“But different isn’t good, and you deserve normal.” Sherlock says quickly. “You deserve someone who looks right and who does the right things... who is normal.”

John takes a step forward and turns Sherlock to face him.

“What the hell is normal Sherlock?” He says and Sherlock bites his lip. “There are over seven billion people in this world and each one of them is different. Who’s to say what’s normal? What’s beautiful? These things are impossible to define with so many contributing factors. You of all people should know that.”

“But you –”

“But me nothing. I don’t want anyone who is thought of as normal. And I don’t want anyone who thinks I’m normal. You are usually so proud to be different. And you should be, never question yourself again, Sherlock. I want you, exactly how you are.”

“You ...”

“Of course I bloody do.”

John rushes forward and his lips are on Sherlock’s before he can protest any longer. Sherlock’s hands are in John’s hair and pulling him desperately close. John’s hands are on his shoulders holding him tightly and pushing his body into Sherlock’s.

Neither of them care that they are in the middle of a cliff walk where tourist upon tourist is wandering by. They don’t care that a couple of people have pointed and giggled. They only know each other and how it all tastes.

Eventually they pull apart and are both a little breathless. John giggles and it makes Sherlock’s stomach swarm with butterflies he never even knew existed. Suddenly he wants to take John back to the bungalow and cover them both with the blankets from the bedroom. He wants to be with him on the living room floor, in the kitchen, the conservatory, hell he’d take him right here if John would let him. 


	26. Saturday Mornings.

Edinburgh is liberating for the both of them.

For Sherlock it’s the first time in his life he remembers feeling happy. And he is.

Waking up with John every morning is making sleep worthwhile. Before, he used to see sleep as an unfortunate necessity, wasting hours he could be spent researching, learning or solving. But now, he actually enjoys the routine of dressing down to his boxers and enveloping himself around John’s warm body. He inhales the very scent of him, tastes every inch of him and falls into comfortable sleeps, which even if they only last a few hours, leave him feeling relaxed and rejuvenated.

He eats more regularly too. Because there is a certain joy to watching John prepare something for them both and seeing his appreciation at Sherlock’s enjoyment. He finds that although his brain will never slow down, it is finding time to enjoy things he previously deemed unworthy. Like how John looks when he’s towel drying his hair.

For John it is literally a breath of fresh air after weeks of pollution.

He hasn’t failed to notice the amount of attention Sherlock pays to him, how he picks up on all of John’s quirks, the way he takes his coffee, how long he likes his bread to be in the toaster for, that he likes tinned tomatoes but not fresh ones.

It’s learning a whole new way for the two of them to be around each other, new ways for them to move in sync. It’s the discovery that Sherlock can listen, and when he does the results are wonderful. It’s catching sight of him falling asleep, when he looks so peaceful, the corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly.

It is with heavy hearts that they hand their keys over and take a taxi back to the train station seven days after they arrived. They have already stayed two days longer than planned and both know they must return to London at some point.

Sherlock upgrades them to first class and they get a carriage entirely to themselves. They talk softly, laugh often and hold hands across the table.

-

Two days after they arrive home to Baker Street, two days in which they’ve not left the flat, they make their way to Scotland Yard to make the statements that Lestrade’s been collaring them for since Zayn was arrested.

Sherlock doesn’t give Lestrade the option of interviewing them separately and gives his rendition of events first. He is inspiring in his strength as he recalls all that happened to him. It hurts John to hear him talk about watching the attacks, how Sherlock felt so powerless and small. Raw emotion comes from Sherlock as he describes not being able to feel the cords ripping into his skin over the fear he felt for his friend.

John starts and struggles with his statement. It is harder for him to bring all these memories to the surface after days of burying them as deep as they can go. He covers himself by saying that all he needed to feel from Sherlock he could do so by the pain in his eyes. He says he wanted Sherlock to be able to look away, to close his eyes, he says he’d rather have died than have Sherlock see him that way.

When he says this, Sherlock reaches out a hand and grasps his shoulder with it. John takes the hand and holds it in his own. Lestrade is gracious enough in the moment to not say anything about this action and only brings it up when the interviews are over and they’re leaving the room, still holding hands.

“What’s with the hands then? He helping you cross the street these days?”

“As ever Lestrade, you are making a complete ass of yourself whilst trying to be humorous,” Sherlock snaps.

“I was just...”

“Don’t worry Greg,” John smiles, “You know what he’s like.”

“Not as well as you, it would seem, eh?” Lestrade laughs.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and John giggles. They walk away from his office, hands still entwined. Lestrade scratches his head with his pen and goes back into his office to type up his notes.

-

They see Mrs Hudson for the first time the day after their visit to the police station.

Sherlock is reading in his armchair whilst John sits on the floor in front. He is watching an awards show on the television whilst Sherlock studies.

Sherlock is laying sideways across the chair so that his legs drape over the arm and his right hand controls his book whilst his left draws small soft circles at the base of John’s neck.

Mrs Hudson knocks and lets herself in.

“Oh, you’re back then,”

“So it would seem,” Sherlock replies.

“Sorry we didn’t knock,” John says.

“Oh no, not at all, I was going to ask if you wanted to come and watch the show downstairs John, I know Sherlock doesn’t like them.”

“I don’t mind,” Sherlock says. “But please, join us.”

He points at John’s vacant chair and Mrs Hudson looks at it as if it’s booby trapped. She looks at John who nods invitingly, so she sits down slowly.

John pulls himself up and goes into the kitchen. He pours them all a glass of wine and returns. Mrs Hudson takes hers with a thank you. He hands Sherlock a glass and Sherlock looks up at him expectantly. John smirks, leans down and kisses him softly on the mouth.

“Oh,” Mrs Hudson says, looking at them both with wide eyes. “What about the nominees for Best Television Show this year then John? I think Downton’s got it in the bag.”

-

After a week of not leaving the flat, bar Scotland Yard, yet getting a lot done, they’re back in St Bart’s in full case mode.

Sherlock is spewing deductions from his mouth whilst John perches on a stool chewing his fingernail and Molly hangs onto his every word.

“..which is clearly evident from the scuff mark on her left indent, John stop biting your nails, you’ll make them all jagged, which places her in the alleyway, next to the car.” He finishes.

He spins so suddenly that he knocks John over and the stool falls, hitting him in the face.

“Oh, god, John, are you alright?” He asks hurriedly, picking up the stool and casting it aside.

He leans John against the counter and inspects the damage.

“I’m fine,” John replies. “Just an accident,”

“Yes, but it’s your bad cheek, let me see,” He looks closely and decides that John’s okay.

He leans in and kisses the tip of his nose.

“Shall I get the forceps then?” Molly asks. “Oh god, no not for you, I mean, I don’t want to get forceps and force you apart or anything, that’s crazy, no I mean, for her, for the body, I just, I mean, I’ll go and get them.”

Molly hurries from the room and the two of them can’t help but crack up.

“Had to break it to her sooner or later,” John sighs.

-

A whole month after they’ve returned from Edinburgh and John and Sherlock are in the pub.

Lestrade has been nagging at John to join them for a pint for a long time, and demanded that they go tonight in celebration of cracking the latest case.

Sherlock was, not happy, but okay, with going to the pub for one drink with John and Lestrade.

But it was an hour later and Donovan and Anderson, who had invited themselves along, were beginning to get on his last nerve.

“Lestrade reckons you’re happy now,” Donovan sneers. “A changed man. I think he’s crazy, nothing would change the cold exterior of the freak that is Sherlock Holmes.”

“At least I’m happy honestly,” Sherlock snaps.

“Honestly?” She asks, scoffing at him.

“My happiness is due to one singular contributing factor in my life and is one hundred percent genuine. I do not live under some paper thin lie masquerading as happiness like the two of you, sitting there, acting all superior because you’re still screwing each other behind Mrs Anderson’s back.” Sherlock says and Donovan crosses her arms defensively.

“You don’t know a thing,” Anderson spits at him. “Not about my marriage, or Sally, or anyone.”

“I know more than you think. You’re a small, sorry excuse for a man Anderson.”

“So you’re all superior are you? Because you’re not a miserable git anymore?” Donovan quips. “What is it then? What is this one singular contributing factor in your life that makes your happiness so much better than our pretending? What is it?”

“Not what,” Sherlock says. “But who.”

And with that he pulls John up, out of his seat and wraps an arm around his shoulder, John laces his around Sherlock’s waist whilst Donovan and Anderson gape at the pair of them.

“If you don’t love your wife Anderson, leave her so that she can find someone who does.” Sherlock says and he and John leave the pub.

Donovan and Anderson are speechless, and sit open mouthed for some time. They can’t even think of something horrible to say.

Lestrade drinks his pint in silence, debating whether to get food or not on the way home.

-

Saturday morning and John wakes up just after eight. He wakes up, stretches and leaves the room. He pads downstairs on soft feet and enters the kitchen scratching his belly. He puts the kettle onto boil and trots downstairs to retrieve the paper from the door.

He returns, makes them both a cup of tea and places Sherlock’s on his desk, puts his own on the coffee table and goes to sit down before a hand is on his wrist.

He is spun round and looks up into eyes that could make you change your whole belief system.

“Good morning,” Sherlock whispers.

“It certainly is.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that my friends, is the end of that.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading it and taking the time to comment. I've had so much fun writing this, and that has only been amplified by your responses. 
> 
> It really means a lot to me that you'd take time out of your day to read my story, and then think of something lovely to say. You've all been making my day lately :D


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